eBay Shuts Down Korean Pet Sales, Still Welcomes Unregulated Breeder Listings in U.S.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals just announced a victory for companion animals in Korea — eBay has agreed to shut down pet sales on its Korean site, Auction.co.kr.

WSPA member organization, Korea Animal Rights Advocates, has been campaigning against online pet sales, citing that 70 percent of pets in the country are bought online. "Selling animals online is a disastrous situation and only exacerbates such problems as puppy mills," KARA writes. "Animals are displayed, sold and delivered like disposable goods and at very low prices."

Also among the complaints were that very young puppies were being sold, that the identity of buyers and sellers can't be fully monitored, and that sellers weren't complying with basic animal welfare laws. Sound familiar? These are the same concerns that the pet blogging community and more than 96,000 Change.org community members have raised about eBay Classifieds' pet listings in the U.S.

People (including eBay executives) take it for granted that the U.S. has stronger animal protection laws than many other parts of the world. Interestingly, this is one area where Korea may come out ahead. According to KARA, Korea's Animal Protection Law "requires all the sellers to be properly registered and comply with animal welfare guidelines."

There is no such law in the U.S. In fact, there's a gaping hole in U.S. legislation that allows puppy mills and other unethical breeders to sell animals online and remain completely unregulated. The PUPS Act has been re-introduced in the House of Representatives to close that loophole, but we have two problems: 1) the bill still needs to be passed, and 2) the PUPS Act alone doesn't change the fact that the USDA has admitted it fails at enforcing existing puppy mill regulations.

Jack Christin, Associate General Counsel, Government Relations for eBay Inc. said, “eBay is committed to being socially responsible and we take the concerns of our global user community seriously ... After examining these concerns, we decided that a complete ban on pet sales in Korea was the best way to ensure compliance of our sellers with local law and make our policies more consistent across our global marketplace platforms.”

What about the concerns of your domestic user community, eBay?

The company claims that they "do not condone the unethical treatment of animals" and that they "take measures to identify and block irresponsible breeders." But they've now admitted that they have no way to ensure compliance of puppy peddlers in Korea, so what's different in the U.S., where online pet sales are unregulated?

eBay doesn't allow live animals to be sold on the U.S. auction site, but the backdoor is wide open for puppy mills and backyard breeders to find customers in the classifieds. There's no shortage of ways that unethical pet sellers will dupe online customers. Sadly, we've also seen buyers do the same, as in the case of the West Virginia man who tortured and killed 29 dogs that had been obtained from classified ads.

eBay has no more control over their U.S. classifieds listings than they had over pet sales on their Korean site. Tell eBay Classifieds to stop selling live animals.

Photo credit: jenny818