eBay Blocks Sales to Certain Countries

[TstebinsB]

I was trying to buy a few Wapis and eBay blocked my access to the page. What I was hit with instead is below. Very annoying. The seller is a member on SRP but he rarely signs on.

Dear User:

Unfortunately, access to this particular listing or item has been blocked due to a Paris commercial court decision that bans trade of certain authentic perfumes and cosmetic products on eBay because of French selective distribution laws. eBay is appealing this ruling but is nevertheless required to enforce it. We are blocking your viewing in an effort to comply with this court decision. Regrettably, in some cases, we may prevent users from accessing items that are not within the scope of the decision because of limitations on existing technology.

Thank You.

Hit the return button to return to the previous page.

[iron maiden]

That's a shame Telly. Hope they can get it worked out.

[Confuzius]

So now are we going to see counterfeit counterfeit auctions to skirt this?

[professorchaos]

So very tempted to wax unenthusiastic about French courts and companies telling American businesses what they can and cannot do. Instead, I will refrain and simply say: How annoying!

[Bobtrumpet]

I ran into this as well when looking at certain domestic (US) sellers of shaving soaps.

It turns out that if you have French installed as an available language for your browser to use, not even the primary language but just available, you'll be blocked from many sites which have anything remotely to do with fragrances or cosmetics. If you disable your browser's ability to use the French language, you'll get past the block.

Are you by chance using a Macintosh? I had the same issue and the problem is pretty easy to resolve on Mac OS X. Not sure how to do it in Windows; the eBay formus have many messages indicating that it's a problem with Internet Explorer as well.

[dloyd9999]

So very tempted to wax unenthusiastic about French courts and companies telling American businesses what they can and cannot do. Instead, I will refrain and simply say: How annoying!

Ummmm America does the same... That's why the trade talks have stalled for the past 10 years or so... Everyone (french, canadians, americans, russians, chinese, etc, etc. ) wants to protect their own industries and balance of trade...

There is no "law" stating that american companies can do whatever they want in France. And vice versa. France and the US have had interesting relations going back to the time that they, the Brits and the Spanish all fought for supremacy in the "new world"...

Me personally, although I am fluent in French, I prefer my american cousins as trading partners. They're more fun!

[SepticTank]

Is that entering via ebay.fr or ebay.com? could be that entering via a non-.fr portal that you can see it... or maybe update your registration so that your country is not France?

[TstebinsB]

I ran into this as well when looking at certain domestic (US) sellers of shaving soaps.

It turns out that if you have French installed as an available language for your browser to use, not even the primary language but just available, you'll be blocked from many sites which have anything remotely to do with fragrances or cosmetics. If you disable your browser's ability to use the French language, you'll get past the block.

Are you by chance using a Macintosh? I had the same issue and the problem is pretty easy to resolve on Mac OS X. Not sure how to do it in Windows; the eBay formus have many messages indicating that it's a problem with Internet Explorer as well.

I'm using my dad's computer and he has IE on Windows. On my personal computer, I use Firefox on Windows. I'll look for a workaround when I get back to my PC.

Is that entering via ebay.fr or ebay.com? could be that entering via a non-.fr portal that you can see it... or maybe update your registration so that your country is not France?

I only use ebay.com. I checked ebay.co.uk just to make sure and I was still blocked.

[SepticTank]

PM me an item/search and I'll have a poke around (I have IP addresses in several countries including France )

Experiment time:

I added fr-fr as a language and I get the message.

Replaced fr-fr with fr-be and the message goes.
Replaced with fr-ca, still no message
Replace with fr-lu - no message
Replace with fr-mc - no message
Replace with fr-ch - no message
Replace with fr - message appears...

[professorchaos]

Ummmm America does the same... That's why the trade talks have stalled for the past 10 years or so... Everyone (french, canadians, americans, russians, chinese, etc, etc. ) wants to protect their own industries and balance of trade...

There is no "law" stating that american companies can do whatever they want in France. And vice versa. France and the US have had interesting relations going back to the time that they, the Brits and the Spanish all fought for supremacy in the "new world"...

Me personally, although I am fluent in French, I prefer my american cousins as trading partners. They're more fun!

Don't mistake my comments, I was commenting on the circumstances described in the original post. Likewise, America has no business inteferring with French companies either. Whether or not to do business with a particular company is a decision that should be left to the consumer. Free minds, free markets, free people...