Following a recent security breach, which resulted users having to change their passwords as well as a warning that their stock earning will be lower for the quarter, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is making a comeback.
Devin Wenig, the President of eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) marketplaces, said in an interview on Bloomberg’s “In the Loop” that the security breach is now fast becoming a thing of the past, and that most of the customers had changed their passwords, so that they were “only a few months behind.”
He went on to explain that the company did what they thought was the best option, and that changing 150 million passwords was not easy. Wenig said that eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) did not lose any substantial amounts of people due to this security breach, and added that he had “not seen the data used maliciously.” However, he added, “any time you get 150 million people to turn over their password, you are going to disrupt your business in the short-run” and reiterated that this was a decision taken very consciously.
Answering a question about whether eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) has fully regained the trust of its client base, Wenig said that “just getting it right” is the best method to ensure this.
“We are still going to sell over $80 billion worth of goods this year, it is an enormous marketplace, and almost all our customers know the multiple layers of protection that we have,” he added.
He called the incident “unfortunate” but mentioned that the customers are coming back and that they trust eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY). Speaking of the possible reasons why the data have not been used maliciously, Wenig said that the multiple layers of protection ensured that changing the passwords was a “safe but not necessary” process, and that the data was encrypted.
Wenig went on to explain that they have a great collaborative relationship with Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and that when Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) changes their algorithms – which direct traffic to the site based on the search terms, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) adapts accordingly, and are currently in the process of doing so. On the topic of competition from Alibaba, he mentioned that eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) has the largest Chinese export business and Alibaba – the largest domestic Chinese business. However, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is focused on Russia, Latin America, and other emerging markets, as well as moving into China, while Alibaba moves out of China.
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