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Ebay classifieds on the smartphone: soon only with a blue tick?
Photo: Rüdiger Wölk / imago images
The Ebay classifieds sales portal plans to introduce verification for users from summer 2021.
The company announced this to the news portal “Heise”.
Anyone who wants to create advertisements or contact them must therefore confirm their identity by means of an SMS tan.
According to the company, the identification requirement is primarily intended to protect children and young people who are quickly victims of harassment on online platforms.
Verification is to be introduced gradually, starting with the categories that are particularly relevant for children and adolescents.
The announcement comes shortly after the broadcast of an RTL program on the subject of cybergrooming.
Grooming is the targeted contact between adults and minors whose aim is to build trust.
This often takes place on online platforms.
Hundreds of intrusive requests in a few days
In the program called "Attack on our children and what WE can do about it", three adults pretended to be twelve year old children.
They wanted to find out how quickly minors can become the target of assault.
To do this, they used the Knuddels chat platform, among other things, as well as eBay classifieds.
According to RTL, the actors received over 500 violent and sexualised inquiries within three days.
The material has since been handed over to the public prosecutor's office.
On Monday, the press spokesman for Ebay classifieds, Pierre Du Bois, was invited to speak about the incidents in the “RTL Special”.
Ebay classifieds claims to have planned SMS verification for a long time.
But now they want to react to the RTL contribution.
The gradual introduction is to begin with the categories "babysitter & childcare" or "tutoring", later to include "women's clothing" and then to the entire portal.
In the long term, only verified users should be able to use the platform.
How exactly the verification should be made visible has not yet been determined, according to the company.
The online sales portal is one of the companies that is benefiting from the corona crisis: The number of advertisements rose - probably also because people spent a lot of time at home during the lockdowns.
In April 2020, the portal counted 40 million advertisements, more than ever before.
The company was taken over by the Norwegian media group Schibsted in summer 2020.
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