Auctiva has gone rogue, spamming buyers. Sellers beware.

Auctiva, over the past month or so, has converted itself into a spamming rogue. One might guess they're on the way down, and desperately trying to make money spamming to stay alive.

Sellers who use Auctiva to create listings are, by default, granting Auctiva the right to spam their buyers. While this has been true for some time, only since about September have we seen the massive spamming which identifies Auctiva as the enemy of their sellers.

The nature of the spam identifies seller as having selected buyer for extended protection, a service called "buyshield".

Buyshield spam first started in March, 2009, as I can see, but it seems to have been suppressed for a while.

Sellers universally report that they know nothing about it, but an inspection of the Auctiva agreement shows that use of Auctiva indeed grants this right to Auctiva.

In theory, seller can opt out of this program. But Auctiva can start new spam campaigns at will, and seller might not even know about the new one or the expectation to opt out of that one too.

Buyers can be expected to post negative feedback to sellers who participate in this spam. Sellers are advised to avoid Auctiva.