Etsy Caves - kinda... okay not really.

A media firestorm seems to be the only thing that can move Etsy from its handmade pedestal enough to actually remove the headphones and stop glancing at fake Chuck Norris' twitter-pretend it's listening long enough to trick you into believing it. Don't be fooled.

They just released this little ditty addressing complaints and what they are doing/have done to address them and actually eek out a half-assed apology and a half-baked fix:

Yesterday and today there have been a handful of articles reporting that purchases on Etsy are public. The articles have led to concerns by members of our community.

We want to apologize. We also want to set the record straight about how our product works and about changes we made today in response to your feedback.

Are my purchases on Etsy public?

No. As of right now, all your purchases on Etsy are private.

Were there changes to Etsy that made my purchases public?

No. The issue here is our Feedback system, which has not changed in six years. We do not directly publish your purchases on Etsy. However, when a seller leaves feedback for an item you bought, or you leave feedback for an item you purchased, we would link to the item. Our Feedback system has always worked this way; our original thinking was that it's important to know more about the transaction, to better establish trust in the marketplace.

We added the option to enter your real name when registering. Right next to this text field, it says: "Your full name will appear on your public profile. This is optional." Some people enter their name, some don't. As of right now, 25% of people (including us) have entered their real name.

It is the confluence of these two things that led us to this position: if you enter your real name, purchase an item, and the seller leaves feedback for this item, this purchase will be publicly visible via our Feedback system. Search engines index our site, which means this data can turn up there, too. It's been this way since October.

If nothing has recently changed, what's going on?

There is a lot of misinformation being spread right now. One blog post even has the outlandish title "Etsy Makes All Of Its Users' Activity Public." This is simply untrue. On Etsy, private conversations, financial information, billing data — all are now and have always been strictly private.There was an article published on ArsTechnica that made clear how direct the connection was between using your real name on Etsy, buying an item and receiving public feedback for that item. The reaction to this article has made us realize that we need to change the way our Feedback system works, and this is what we’ve already done today.

Why make any changes to the Feedback system?

The article and response highlighted for us how we've outgrown our current Feedback system. It dates back to a time when payment for items was sent after completing the checkout process on Etsy. This meant that sellers needed to know how trustworthy their buyer was. We now require payment prior to completing checkout, so this issue has basically gone away.

We believe that markets are conversations. We want people to discuss what they purchase, although this will often mean discussing it in private. As such, we have removed the link from a piece of feedback (which is public) to the item that was purchased (which is now private).

What is Etsy’s view on privacy?

We take privacy very seriously. We work with TRUSTe and audit our privacy policies regularly, notifying all members via email any time a substantive change is made.

In the future, we may provide an option to share individual purchases publicly at the time of purchase. This will be completely opt-in and on a purchase-by-purchase basis.

We are deeply sorry for any confusion and will work hard to regain your trust.

What’s next?

We have been working quickly to make changes based on your input and opinions. We will continue to work on this, for what’s really needed is a rethinking of our entire Feedback system. In the meantime, all purchases are private, and feedback doesn’t link to items.

If you have any more questions or concerns, please email support [!at] etsy.com or convo us directly on Etsy.

Thank you.
Rob (CEO) and Adam (COO)

The forums aren't buying it. Many sellers immediately pointed out the REAL issues remain unaddressed: no notification when this went live, real names going public and a deafening lack of answers for the user-base in the forums themselves.



And those "handful of articles"? Artsy Alien was nice enough to list them all here:

Consumerist - http://consumerist.com/2011/03/you-want-your-real-name-associated-with-your-etsy-purchase-history-right.html

Ars Technica - http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/03/etsy-users-irked-after-buyers-purchases-exposed-to-the-world.ars

BoingBoing - http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/15/etsys-privacy-valdez.html

MSNBC - http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/15/6273251-e-commerce-site-etsy-exposes-users-shopping-histories

Forbes - http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/03/15/etsys-experiment-with-social-could-be-costly/

Digital Trends - http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/etsy-comes-under-fire-for-revealing-buyers-names-purchase-histories/

Help Net Security - http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10746

NY Magazine - http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/03/unannounced_privacy_changes_ex.html

NY Convergence - http://nyconvergence.com/2011/03/etsy-exposes-buyers-and-purchases-online.html

Auctionbytes - http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y11/m03/i15/s02

The Business Insider - http://www.businessinsider.com/etsy-takes-a-page-from-the-facebook-playbook-2011-3

Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/5782146/etsy-privacy-catastrophe-reveals-users-full-names-dildo-preferences-and-other-less-embarrassing-purchase-information

Village Voice - http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/03/etsy_privacy_policy_dildos.php

The Mary Sue (awesome new geek chick blog, if you haven't seen it yet) - http://www.themarysue.com/etsy-privacy-settings/

Buzzfeed - http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/etsy-new-privacy-policy-not-so-private

About.com - http://antivirus.about.com/b/2011/03/14/the-etsy-trojan.htm

Reputation.com - http://reputation.com/blog/2011/03/15/etsy-privacy-change-shows-users-purchase-histories/

Yahoo - http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110315/tc_digitaltrends/etsycomesunderfireforrevealingbuyersnamespurchasehistories

Salon.com - http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/03/15/etsy_privacy_people_search/

NowPublic - http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/etsy-people-search-privacy-policy-change-exposes-users-2767071.html

Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/the-circuit-kerry-hutchinson-introduce-infrastructure-bank-franken-to-propose-new-net-neutrality-bill-free-calls-texts-to-japan/2011/03/08/AB7m9gW_blog.html

Geek Sugar - http://www.geeksugar.com/Etsy-Privacy-Settings-14921901


Added: Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/15/etsy-privacy-debacle-site_n_836277.html

Added: Ars technica Update post


That more than I can hold in twelve hands, how about you?

Sometimes these write themselves

For some reason Etsy likes the Lotto. Maybe it's the roots of Old Vegas Keno that makes their young hearts feel so hot for it, but whatever it is it fucks over the users every time.

Treasuries are already a lottery system. You might get lucky and score one, you might not. You can time your visit to be ten minutes before they line up, and wait on the page with a sniper-like instinct to hit that button when the treasury name field appears to snag one... and still lose because that day many too others were there as well. It sucks. No, it really really sucks.

Etsy has extended this to their singular advertising venture, The BUST Magazine Ad.

They got 23 million+ in funding but sellers still have to pay to be in it because it's more uh... what's the word... halfassed.

The entire Bust thing has bothered me from the beginning, it's a rather small magazine by conventional standards, and its subscription base seems to consist largely of shallow 20-something fashionista hipsters who think that jeans look awesome under dresses. (Hint: you look stupid... oh sorry, retarded.) And the money? I think it's entirely too much money for one product shot in a smaller specialty periodical myself.

I'm sure Bust Magazine is larger in New York City, but where I'm from it's unheard of. But aside from that, Etsy's lottery system method as to which lucky few get the privileges to be included in the ad all depends on how little of a life you have and how long you're willing to wait staring at a button on a screen.

Seems that Etsy was late for the appointed clusterfuck while the hungry hordes lined up. And waited. And waited. Then the guy at Etsy who was supposed to flip the switch looked up from World of Warcraft and noticed the time.

Then he went out for a smoke, and tied his shoes, and chatted up the homeless man on the corner. (By the way, this particluar Admin's avatar has his tongue sticking out, I think says it all.)

When he finally flipped the switch it was over, in seconds. So fast that people who were there before the appointed time got shut out.

Then it was open... then not, or was it, then it was... a clusterfuck. No one could tell if it was open, it would say closed then spots would appear.

As much as we like Matt, Etsy needs a real marketing department with designers and editors who get ads in magazines of real impact. Hell, even just one ad in Martha Stewart Living will reach more people than 10 ads in BUST.

Why does it have to be a shoddy unpredictable lottery system? What if half the "winners" are all earrings? Or stuffed animals? Or handmade underwear? Talk about looking unorganized and rather limited. What if you paid then found out your item is next to one similar or even next to a direct competitor of yours? I'd be screaming bloody murder.

Why can't we have a real advert that is rather like some of the best treasuries: a colour, seasonal, holiday or other theme and some stunning items that are hand picked by a member or something be some of the best and brightest Etsy has to offer not just whomever showed up waving money at the right millisecond? It's called looking professional. I know it's an alien concept there.

Hell, you could take a iTunes slant with it and model the celebrity playlists. Ask a Etsy loving celebrity to pick out their favorite 10-12 items on Etsy, or have a member contest and online voting for the best list of the most stunning list of items. There are all kinds of ways to pick a way that is better than what they do now.

Throw in a special entry page for those readers (etsy.com/martha) that shows them those things in the and and other things like those shown and a fab search field to bring them the rest of the site, just for them. That's gold there.

Why does everything Etsy do seem to be so poorly thought out?


I nominate this thread to be included into the the First Annual EB Hall of Shame. (That's another post coming soon.)