I received a mass emailing that came from a group called Change.org that expressed a call to action to sign a petition that it was critical for eBay to cease carrying dogs in their classified section. Here are some of the statements in that mass emailing:
A few years ago, eBay had plans to sell animals via online auction. Responsible breeders would never sell dogs via online auction, so this would have resulted in the site becoming a haven for puppy mills. eBay users and anti-cruelty activists spearheaded — and won — the fight to prevent eBay from selling live animals.
Despite eBay’s claims that it “do[es] not condone unethical treatment of animals,” eBay now allows puppy mills to sell dogs in its classified section.
This practice enables flagrant cruelty to dogs, and it has to stop. Tell eBay to shut down its sales of cruelly treated puppies and all live animals.
Puppy mill dogs spend their entire lives in small wire cages, without companionship, and often without vet care, exercise or shelter from the elements. As far as puppy mill owners are concerned, the dogs have one purpose: to supply the pet trade.
The USDA recently admitted that they’ve failed to effectively monitor commercial breeders and puppy mills. When it comes to sites like eBay Classifieds, it’s even worse: Breeders who sell directly to customers online aren’t subject to any USDA regulations.
To learn more about this situation, I turned to the Humane Society of the United States which has a Puppy Mill Campaign division and stays on top of legislation and practices around the issue of mass production and sales of puppies to the public. As is so often the case, there is a gray area in a topic that might at first glance seem to be black or white. My contact at HSUS replied:
The Humane Society of the United States
700 Professional Drive Gaithersburg, MD 20879
humanesociety.orgThe Humane Society of the United States has had a good working relationship with eBay, as an auction site, over the year. While they have not always agreed or acquiesced to our concerns about their business in relation to animals, we have always had high-level access to discuss those issues, and they have resulted in some good outcomes, such as eBay’s banning sales of any ivory in the US, and a decision by eBay/Korea’s auction site to stop selling pets.
eBay, as an auction site, does not allow the sale of live animals in the US, primarily because they support the idea that shipping animals from one part of the country to another can be problematic for the animals. A few years ago, someone at eBay floated the idea of changing that policy, but it was killed, in part because of our input.
A couple of years ago eBay bought an on-line classified site, kijiji.com, which has since become eBay Classifieds. When they first started up, we reached out to them and urged them not to sell pets, citing the disconnect with eBay/US’s long-standing policy against auctioning live animals. However, they believed selling pets through the classified section was different because classified sales were local, and the shipping hazards wouldn’t apply. We talked to them about the problem of having ads on their site from bad breeders and puppy mills, issues with “free to good home” ads, etc. It soon became clear that, for a lot of reasons, they weren’t going to drop the pets category.
At some point, they came back to us with a proposal for us to post information on their site, to tell people about puppy mills, point to info on adoption and choosing a good breeder, etc. While our preference would be that they didn’t sell animals at all, we decided to work with them for several reasons, starting with the reality that there was virtually no chance that eBay Classifieds would, at least at this point, stop selling pets, and that even if they did, it wouldn’t eliminate on-line classified pet listings. Someone else would just pick up those ads. Since eBay Classifieds had the largest share of the market, we reasoned that it was the best chance to reach the majority of classified ad buyers with a warning message. In addition, eBay Classifieds asked us to help educate them and their staff about what to look for in puppy mill ads, and have been responsive to our requests to drop specific ads or sellers when we can provide specific evidence of a seller’s problematic history. They are also trying to get more shelters to advertise animals up for adoption.
This doesn’t mean that we won’t continue to encourage them to change their policy, but we believe we will have better success with eBay on all animal issues by continuing frank and open dialog, and open channels of access to the people there who can make decisions that benefit animals, even though we recognize we won’t always win the argument.
We recognize that there would be great symbolic value to eBay stepping away from selling pets through eBay Classifieds. But the fact remains that eliminating pets from eBay would not eliminate online pet classifieds, just move them to other sites, and sites which would likely be less responsive to messaging about pets, adoptions, puppy mills, etc. For years, before the Internet, shelters around the country, and The HSUS, tried to get newspapers not to advertise pets for sale, to no avail. Unfortunately, classified ad sales of pets isn’t new, the emphasis has just moved from print to ether.
This warning, which links to our responsible pet buyer tips, is displayed whenever you open a puppy ad on Ebay:
Important Safety Warning: Please take care when buying and selling animals. Learn more about responsible pet ownership and adoption. Avoid fraud by meeting all sellers in-person to pay for items. eBay Classifieds does not offer any transaction or payment services. Stay safe – read our safety tips.
Of course, we always recommend that anyone getting a pet consider adoption as the first option.
