http://www.wortfilter.de/News/news3423.html
This is a link to a statement of a single person that expresses his opinions. He is basically citing court decisions that many other sites are citing, too, and he probably didn't read his sources (just like all the other sites I've found: the same phrases are repeated everywhere). The judgments that I could find on the net (or parts thereof) stated that the persons concerned sold in high volumes during a short period of time (making them look like a secondhand dealer, understandably), lots of new goods, or counterfeits.
For instance, the often-cited statement "25 feedbacks within 2 months make you a commercial seller" does not tell the whole story (your link lists that one, too): that person has sold new, original CDs for BMW navigation systems via eBay, but did so as a private person (see
here). Because he did not sell a single, but many copies, he was not considered a private seller anymore. A competitor got pissed and dragged him into court. I think that's OK.
Other sellers used brand names to sell their stuff not directly related to the brands and got into trouble for this. It's really lame that some companies get pissed because of such a voidness, but our stupid laws allow them to. This means you should probably take care to describe your stuff accurately and you should not compare it carelessly with similar goods of other brands.
So, from what I've found out now, selling your private stuff does not impose any risk unless you are using brand names unrelatedly or become a "powerseller".
The Big Brother thing is a different story, of course... Not so cool.
But does eBay really give all data to the tax office
per se, or is it just the tax office that observes activities on eBay? I mean, everybody could start collecting lots of data by just observing sales on eBay, no?
