Actually the fine folks at Ebay will give out a seller's personal info - at least they will give it to *wood authorities when it comes to a seller selling *wood related items - see post #4 of http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=343564 where user pacman777 says, "I even tried ebaying the SPG50 cert, but somehow, Starwood got my contact information and sent me a CERTIFIED mail threatening they would close my membership account for breaking the terms and conditions of the cert which state it is not to be sold. I'm not sure how they got the info so quickly before my auction ended."

I know for a fact that what pacman says is true as about a year ago someone I know listed (and sold) an SPG50 on ebay. About a week or two later they received a letter from a paralegal at *wood that ended with the following:

"Consequently, we hereby request that you immediately cease and desist from any and all sales of Starwood Preferred Guest 50% Off Awards in your possession or receive in the future. Unless you comply with this request, we may be forced to take appropriate steps to terminate your Preferred Guest privileges and revoke your membershipor take other appropriate legal remedies."

Interestingly enough this seller WAS NOT even an SPG member!

To me the important thing here is that Ebay DEFINITELY gave out a user's info to a party not involved in a transaction, something I think should never ever happen as long as no laws are broken (yes a *wood RULE was broken - but definitely NOT a law). In this case ebay gave *wood the seller's mailing address info as the bad-boy letter from *wood was addressed exactly the same as the seller's ebay registration info - an address that the seller uses ONLY for ebay related business.