eBay bans AI agents from automated shopping as agentic commerce tools rapidly emerge

eBay bans illicit automated shopping amid rapid rise of AI agents

On Tuesday, eBay updated its User Agreement to explicitly ban third-party "buy for me" agents and AI chatbots from interacting with its platform without permission, first spotted by Value Added Resource. On its face, a one-line terms of service update doesn't seem like major news, but what it implies is more significant: The change reflects the rapid emergence of what some are calling "agentic commerce," a new category of AI tools designed to browse, compare, and purchase products on behalf of users. eBay's updated terms, which go into effect on February 20, 2026, specifically prohibit users from employing "buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end flow that attempts to place orders without human review" to access eBay's services without the site's permission. The previous version of the agreement contained a general prohibition on robots, spiders, scrapers, and automated data gathering tools but did not mention AI agents or LLMs by name. At first glance, the phrase "agentic commerce" may sound like aspirational marketing jargon, but the tools are already here, and people are apparently using them. While fitting loosely under one label, these tools come in many forms. OpenAI first added shopping features to ChatGPT Search in April 2025, allowing users to browse product recommendations. By September, the company launched Instant Checkout, which lets users purchase items from Etsy and Shopify merchants directly within the chat interface. (In November, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone suggested the company might join OpenAI's Instant Checkout program in the future.) Elsewhere, Perplexity offers "Buy with Pro," a one-click checkout feature for its paying subscribers. Google recently announced its Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard for AI agents to interact with retailers. And Amazon offers a "Buy For Me" feature, which uses AI to purchase items from external brand websites within the Amazon app. Even with new restrictions, eBay leaves the door open eBay's policy update follows the company's quiet changes to its robots.txt file in December, a special file on a web server that lists rules and prohibitions that sites hope web-crawling bots will follow. According to Modern Retail, eBay added a new "Robot & Agent Policy" to the file that prohibited automated scraping and buy-for-me agents. eBay later updated the file to add explicit blocks against bots from Perplexity, Anthropic, Amazon, and others, though it allowed Google's shopping bot to access the site. However, restrictions in robots.txt files are basically honor-system suggestions. By adding the language to its User Agreement, eBay can now more easily take legal action against users or companies who violate the policy. Notably, even with this general mood against robotic commerce from outsiders, eBay's new User Agreement policy does not prevent the company from developing its own AI shopping tools. CEO Jamie Iannone said on an October earnings call that eBay is "testing a variety of agentic experiences in search and shopping." The rules also allow such bots "with the prior express permission of eBay," which could open the door to official shopping partnerships with companies like OpenAI.

eBay updates legalese to ban AI-powered shop-bots

This establishment does not serve agents, says digital tat bazaar eBay has decided to ban agentic shopping bots from its digital tat bazaar. The company's decision emerged in an update to its user agreement posted on January 20th, which insists users must not use "buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end flow that attempts to place orders without human review" on the site, unless eBay grants approval. The revised agreement, and eBay's previous legalese, prohibit use of "any robot, spider, scraper, data mining tools, data gathering and extraction tools, or other automated means to access our Services for any purpose." Advocates for agentic commerce imagine a world in which shoppers can tell an autonomous agent what they want to buy and authorize the software to purchase it on their behalf. Some envisage simple "Buy product X when it's available anywhere for $Y" bots. Others, like management consultancy McKinsey, think we're headed for "a world in which AI anticipates consumer needs, navigates shopping options, negotiates deals, and executes transactions, all in alignment with human intent yet acting independently via multistep chains of actions enabled by reasoning models." The common denominator in those visions is that people stop visiting websites and therefore won't see any of the extra offers publishers use to boost their sales or engagement. Site operators will instead have to contend with bots programmed to never buy metaphorical fries with that, and which incessantly stress servers in search of a deal. E-commerce outfits would therefore need to add a machine-to-machine interface in addition to their human interfaces. Google has volunteered to provide the machine-to-machine layer, and told The Register it doesn't envisage taking a cut of sales it facilitates. The company is, however, uncannily good at making itself an unavoidable player in markets it enters and then monetizing its dominance. Amazon.com has already expressed its displeasure with this vision by sending agentic AI company Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter that essentially says "This establishment does not serve shop-bots." Google, however, says retailers appreciate the agentic commerce tools it launched a couple of weeks ago. eBay has an obvious reason to dislike AI shoppers: It charges sellers a variable "final value fee", which sees it earn more money on higher-priced items. Bots swooping in to win auctions on the site could mean more items sell for less, costing eBay cash. We've asked eBay for comment and will update this story if the company responds. ®

eBay bans AI agents from shopping, but hints at future approved bots

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. Editor's take: eBay has faced significant controversy in recent years. Now, the e-commerce giant is preparing to tackle "agentic shopping" and other aggressive AI-driven bots that compete with regular, paying human customers. Starting February 20, 2026, eBay will explicitly prohibit chatbots and AI agents from operating on its auction platform. The company plans to update its user agreement with a targeted change concerning the "automated means" used to access its services. eBay announced the update in a recent email to users. The revised agreements include an enhanced anti-scraping section, clearly banning AI, large language models, and other bots designed to place purchase orders without human intervention. Any AI-based entity wishing to operate on the platform must obtain prior permission from eBay, the email stated. The new rules follow recent changes to eBay's robots.txt file, which now explicitly seeks to block bots and AI technology. "Checkouts are strictly for human users," the server-side file now reads. While the Robots Exclusion Protocol in robots.txt cannot fully prevent access by bots or AI agents, the updated user agreement establishes a significant legal barrier to automated crawlers operated by Big Tech companies or AI startups. AI-driven shopping may sound like a bad idea - and it's hard to see its practical value - but some users are already experimenting with it. "Agentic" e-commerce features are now integrated into ChatGPT, including a checkout function that allows direct purchases from platforms like Etsy or Shopify. Other AI-powered commerce tools are also emerging. Perplexity offers a one-click checkout for paying users, while Google is developing a Universal Commerce Protocol to standardize shopping AI agents. Amazon, meanwhile, is rolling out a "Buy For Me" feature to enable purchases from external brands directly within its app. eBay CEO Jamie Iannone recently indicated that the company could eventually participate in OpenAI's Instant Checkout program. The updated user agreement suggests that eBay may allow certain AI agents to make authorized purchases on the platform. Iannone also mentioned that eBay is experimenting with its own agentic shopping experiences, a move that could complicate matters for a site already grappling with counterfeit goods and unsafe products.