UPDATED The squeeze is on: Ebay starts forcing sellers to use Global Shipping Program

UPDATE 13 July.
Ebay is again allowing sellers to opt out of the GSP.  No statement from ebay, but the page will again allow opting out.  Could have been some kind of foul smelling blowback.

http://www.ebay.com/prf/GspPreference

 That's the page you can get to by going down account/site preferences/shipping preferences/edit GSP

If you do opt out after the forced opt in, check
1. Your live listings.  I don't know if opting out will affect them or not, need to check.
2. your setting to block buyers whose primary address is in countries I do not ship to  Check this both on  your site preferences as well as on live listings.

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Well, not quite forcing, but as close as you might imagine.

Here's how it's going down.

A new User Agreement is being presented to selling accounts.  The page content says "Page Invalid", and contains stuff from ebay's web server to handle an invalid page.

Seller has to choose to accept, or to decline. Declining will end up redisplaying the same demand.  Force?  Yeah.

Once accepted, two things happen.

1. Seller is permanently signed up for the GSP. No way out.  There is a setting which might seem to offer a way out, but it is grayed out, and does not do anything at all.  Force?  Yeah.

2. All of sellers current live listings are modified to accept GSP.  If seller notices, seller can go back and modify the listing to not offer GSP. Force?  Yeah.

3. All of sellers current live listings are modified to not block buyers whose primary address is not in countries I ship to.  If seller notices, seller can go back and modify the listings to block such buyers. Force?  Yeah.

Bah.