Wednesday, March 16, 2011

How to Make Your Etsy Info As Private As Possible

From Business Insider 3/16/11  This article originally from Etsy Bitch-> Huff Post->Business Insider

The online vintage and crafts marketplace recently caused an uproar when Etsy users suddenly discovered that some of their information had been made publicly viewable. We're talking feedback posts, purchases and user profiles. But that's not what sparked the outrage—in some cases, real names and email addresses were made public AND searchable.


All of this was because of Etsy's new People Search tool, which lets anybody search for Etsy users—buyers and sellers alike—and let's those user profiles show up in Google. On those public profiles, you could find real names, purchase history and feedback left. Their goal—to build a community feature called "Circles" that lets users connect with each other.
Etsy never notified users of this change in its privacy policy—websites can do what they want, when they want, apparently. And some of the users affected may not want people seeing feedback that was once personal exposed, especially when it comes to something like dildos. Etsy has since corrected the problem in their feedback system due to user concerns, but you still need to take control of your Etsy account to keep it from prying eyes.



Step 1 Log In

Make sure you're logged into your Etsy account.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 2 Account

Click the Your Account link in the top right-hand side of the webpage next to your user name.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 3 Settings

Now, on the left-hand menu bar, click on the Settings link.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 4 Privacy

Click on the Privacy tab to view your privacy settings.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 5 Favorites

If you want to make your favorites private, then select Only you (private).
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 6 Findability

If you don't want other users to find you by your email address, then select No.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 7 Purchases

Your purchase history remains private on Etsy, and that had never changed. What changed is the feedback system, which Etsy updated, as mentioned before.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 8 Save

Make sure to save all of your changes made by pressing the Update Privacy Settings button at the bottom. Your changed will not be saved unless you do so.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 9 Real Name

To keep your "real name" from showing up in Google search or Etsy search, then you'll want to change it to an alias. Click on Profile in the left-hand menu bar.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes
Click the Change link next to your full name used and change to whatever you'd like.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Step 10 Profile Settings

To further control your Etsy user profile, scroll down to the bottom of the Profile page in Your Account. Here you can verify that your favorites are set to private, along with a few more changes you can make to what's included on your profile page.
How To Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes
Now, these changes are the best you can do to protect your information on Etsy, aside from deleting your account. It may not prevent another Etsy debacle, but it definitely helps in the now.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

This doesn't block people from viewing my profile, they can still look at my profile page and see my real name right on it. Blocking favorites and treasuries isn't nearly good enough, and does not address the core issue of them releasing my NAME without my consent.

Midwestie Lady - Linda said...

I don't think that doing all these steps is the whole answer. The space for my "real name" showed nothing. And that is not correct. I used my full name, my real name, when I set up my Etsy shop. So what is showing on my profile is not correct. I went ahead and put in my first name and the name of my shop as my last name. Now I wonder where they have hidden my "real name" and how it will be released somewhere.

morgansilk said...

I had done most of this, but you put it very clearly and easy to understand. I applaud you.

What I want to know is how to go about changing the address the customer gets when they purchase, I would really like to protect that, too, by making changes to my name or PO.