Strange asterisked user names in eBay

[MichaelVee]

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of bidding from users on eBay whose eBay user names contain asterisks.

Such as 9***e, s***k, o***t, etc.

What is this, anybody know? It looks like eBay is using some new method of obscuring bidders' user names, instead of doing the Bidder 1, Bidder 2, and so on. Whatever it is, there are a LOT of these user names going.

[fenderhutz]

It's meant to hide the username when checking things like bidding history. Security measure. Why would you need to know a username if you aren't involved directly in a transaction type of thing.

[Asa Samuel]

Originally Posted by fenderhutz

It's meant to hide the username when checking things like bidding history. Security measure. Why would you need to know a username if you aren't involved directly in a transaction type of thing.

i thought instead of doing that they just put 'bidder 1' 'bidder 2' etc. and then after the auction has ended then you find out who it is.

[MichaelVee]

I finally came across this following announcement on eBay that explains it:

"• New User ID Masking - We are replacing the current aliases (Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3) with a masked ID that consists of two random characters from the member’s User ID – for example a***b. For any given member, this masked ID will be consistent across all auctions over $200 for which they place bids. At the end of a listing, the winning bidder's User ID will be displayed on both the item and bid history page. Please note: Sellers will still be able to access bidder information for their listings through the Bid History page and view the actual user ID."