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2.) Hiding all buyer ID prevents sophisticaed buyers from compiling a list of previous winners and competitors in a particular genre or for a certain item and compiling how high those winners/ competitors bid. Okay, so the auction is over, you lost, a bunch of snipers showed up. By checking their buying history, you could determine a.) whether you'd see them again on an identical or similar item b.) how high they went and how high you'd have to bid to beat them c.) what other items they were interested in and whether or not they'd won or lost on those items. This last point was very relevant if you had similar interests. If they'd lost, you could expect to see them again when an identical item was listed appeared.