eBay has updated its User Agreement to prohibit third-party AI agents and chatbots from making purchases on its platform without permission. The policy, effective February 20, 2026, addresses the growing trend of 'agentic commerce' tools that automate shopping. This move allows eBay to pursue legal action against violators while leaving room for its own AI developments.
On Tuesday, eBay revised its User Agreement to explicitly ban third-party “buy for me” agents, LLM-driven bots, and any end-to-end flows that place orders without human review, unless authorized by the company. The change, first noted by Value Added Resource, takes effect on February 20, 2026, and builds on a general prior prohibition against robots, spiders, scrapers, and automated data tools—but now names AI agents specifically.
This policy shift reflects the rapid rise of agentic commerce, where AI tools browse, compare, and buy products for users. OpenAI introduced shopping features to ChatGPT Search in April 2025 and launched Instant Checkout in September 2025 for Etsy and Shopify merchants. eBay CEO Jamie Iannone indicated in November 2025 that the company might join OpenAI’s program. Other examples include Perplexity’s “Buy with Pro” one-click checkout, Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol for AI-retailer interactions, and Amazon’s “Buy For Me” feature for external purchases within its app.
eBay had already adjusted its robots.txt file in December 2025, adding a “Robot & Agent Policy” that blocked automated scraping and buy-for-me agents, specifically targeting bots from Perplexity, Anthropic, Amazon, and others while permitting Google’s shopping bot. However, robots.txt relies on voluntary compliance; embedding the rules in the User Agreement enables eBay to enforce them legally.
Despite the restrictions, eBay is not closing off AI entirely. Iannone stated on an October 2025 earnings call that the company is “testing a variety of agentic experiences in search and shopping.” The policy permits such bots with eBay’s prior express permission, potentially fostering partnerships like with OpenAI.
