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Help with Cookies

If you intend to sell on one or more of eBay's international sites, you will need to accept, and we encourage you to carefully review, the User Agreement, policies, and other requirements of that site. You can continue to reach out to the relevant customer service teams on the respective eBay site of your listing or transaction, as may be applicable to the nature of your query.

Cookies are small files placed on the hard drive of your computer that we use to help provide our services, and to make your interaction with eBay smoother and safer. We use HTML cookies to operate our sign-in feature, remember your preferences, and require you to enter your password less frequently. We also use Flash cookies to identify your computer for trust and safety purposes.

For information about how eBay uses cookies and safeguards the information in them, see Cookies, Web Beacons, and Your Privacy. eBay respects your privacy and uses your personal information in accordance with our eBay Privacy Policy.

To make sure eBay’s features (including signing in) work properly:

  • Check that your web browser has cookies enabled. To learn more about accepting cookies, consult your browser's help.

  • Be familiar with how your web browser manages cookies, including how to delete cookies. To learn more about deleting cookies, consult your browser's help.

Important: You should only need to delete cookies from your computer if you receive an error message saying that your browser is rejecting cookies.

Procedures for managing cookies are specific to each web browser. The following instructions are for eBay’s recommended Web browsers. For instructions for managing cookies in other Web browsers or online services (Netscape, AOL, Opera), see your web browser’s online Help.

How does eBay use Flash cookies?
When you sign in to your eBay account, a unique ID is generated that identifies the computer you’ve used to connect to eBay. This unique ID is stored as a Flash cookie on your computer so that the next time you visit eBay from the same machine, we are able to confirm that it is a trusted source.

Setting your browser to accept cookies

Accepting cookies in Internet Explorer 6.0

  1. On the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, select Internet Options.                                                                 .

  2. Click the Privacy tab.

  3. The default setting is medium, which allows you to accept cookies. To change this setting, move the slider to determine which setting you prefer. If your setting is set to Custom, click the Advanced button and choose Accept Cookies.

 

Accepting cookies in Mozilla Firefox 1.5

  1. On the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, click Options.

  2. Click the Privacy icon, and then click on the Cookies tab.

  3. Verify that the Allow sites to set cookies is checked (the default setting), or you may decide exactly which cookies should and should not be saved by selecting the other cookie management options.

Accepting cookies in Apple Safari 2

  1. Select Safari from the top menu.

  2. Select Preferences .

  3. Click on the Security Icon (lock).

  4. Under Accept Cookies, click the radio button next to Always.

    Or you can limit cookies by selecting, Only from sites you navigate to (default setting).

 

 

Deleting cookies

Most cookies are session cookies that are automatically deleted from your hard drive once you end your session (that is, once you sign out or close your web browser). Some cookies enable Web sites to identify you when you return. Without the cookie file, Web sites you frequent, like eBay will treat you as a new user each time you return. You should only need to delete cookies if you receive the message saying that your browser is rejecting cookies.

To delete cookies in Internet Explorer 6.0

  1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

  2. On the General tab, click the Delete Cookies button.

To delete cookies in Firefox 1.5

  1. Click Tools, and then choose Options.

  2. Click the Privacy icon, and then click the Cookies tab.

  3. Click the Clear Cookies Now button.

To delete cookies in Apple Safari 2 

  1. Select Safari from the top menu and select Preferences.

  2. Click on the Security Icon (lock).

  3. Click on the Show Cookies button.

  4. Click on the Remove All button.

 

Managing Flash Cookies

You can manage Flash cookies on a per-site basis, using the Flash settings tool. This enables you to disable the use of Flash cookies, or you can chose to limit activity to specific domains, such as eBay.

What happens if I want to delete Flash cookies or prevent their use?

Although we don’t recommend it, you can delete or prevent the use of Flash cookies. If you delete or disable Flash cookies, we won’t be able to recognize the computers you frequently use, and we may need to request additional verification from you at certain times.

To limit or disable Flash cookies:

  1. On the site you are viewing, right-click Flash content to display the context menu.

  2. Select Settings to bring up the Settings dialog.

  3. Click on the folder icon to open the Local Storage panel. This panel indicates the amount of storage currently in use for the current Web site and lets you change the default amount of storage for the current Web site by moving the slider bar.

  4. When you have finished changing the settings, click “Close”. Flash Player remembers your local storage settings for the current Web site.

 

To delete any existing use of Flash cookies:

  2. Click on the Web site whose cookies you want to delete.

  3. Click on Delete website.

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