eBay Bans Airbag Sales After Deadly Replacement Parts Draw Federal Scrutiny
eBay will stop allowing airbags and airbag inflators to be sold on the marketplace next month, ending sales that had been limited to a small group of approved automotive recyclers.
Effective September 24, standalone airbags, airbag inflators or gas generators, and steering wheel airbag covers will no longer be allowed to be listed by any seller.
Other airbag-related parts that don't contain an airbag or inflator, including control units, crash sensors, diagnostic modules and passenger sensors, will still be allowed. In the US, those parts can only be listed by sellers who are already pre-approved, while sellers outside the US will still be allowed to list them without pre-approval.
eBay says the decision was made after a "comprehensive review of the risks these products may pose to eBay users" and sellers have 30 days to remove affected listings before the company takes them down.
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation last year into replacement airbag inflators marked "DTN60DB" after reports that the devices were rupturing during deployment and firing metal debris into vehicle occupants.
NHTSA's April final decision cited twelve ruptures resulting in ten deaths and two severe injuries, finding the inflators posed an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death and banning their sale or import into the US. The agency has since added another severe injury from a June crash, bringing the total to 13 crashes, ten deaths and three severe injuries.
The inflators are marked "DTN," the abbreviated name of Chinese manufacturer Jilin Province Detiannuo Safety Technology, though the company claims the parts may actually be counterfeits made by someone else.
NHTSA said DTN provided no evidence to support that claim and that the question of who actually made the parts didn't change its finding that inflators marked DTN60DB are dangerously defective.
One of those deaths involved 22-year-old Destiny Byassee, whose 2020 Chevrolet Malibu had previously been in another crash where the original airbags deployed.
According to court records and reporting on the case, the Florida repair shop that rebuilt the vehicle purchased a replacement airbag on eBay in November 2022 from seller "ffnn2002." The vehicle was later sold through Manheim to DriveTime and eventually purchased by Byassee, who had no knowledge that a potentially dangerous replacement airbag had been installed.
In June 2023, the airbag ruptured during another crash, sending metal shrapnel into the cabin and killing Byassee. Her estate sued DTN and others involved in the supply and repair chain in 2024, eventually adding eBay as a defendant in March 2025.
A Florida judge dismissed the claims against the company with prejudice on February 17, 2026, finding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protected eBay from liability because the allegations rested on the idea that eBay should have reviewed the third-party seller's listing, determined it violated policy and removed it.
The court found there was no allegation that eBay created or developed the listing or handled the airbag itself, making the decision whether to allow or remove the listing an editorial function protected by Section 230.
The case continued against DTN and a Broward County jury awarded Byassee's family $603 million in June 2026, including $243 million in compensatory damages and $360 million in punitive damages.
While the lawsuit was still pending, NHTSA was pursuing its own investigation. On January 30, 2026, NHTSA issued a formal Special Order directly to eBay, saying it had information that modules containing the substandard DTN inflators "have been sold by sellers on eBay."
NHTSA wanted details about seller accounts linked to the investigation, motor vehicle equipment sold through those accounts and the buyers involved. The agency also asked eBay to identify every listing in the previous ten years where it had learned a substandard or counterfeit airbag product was sold on the site, including any associated injuries or deaths, what eBay did in response and whether consumers or government agencies were notified.
eBay responded that it does not maintain records in the ordinary course of business that would allow it to provide a complete and accurate accounting of those sales during that ten-year period. Instead, it searched listings associated with the specific seller accounts NHTSA had identified.
The company said it became aware of the airbag involved in the Byassee lawsuit in March 2025 when it was served with an amended complaint, but was not aware of any widespread issue with DTN airbag, alleged or actual, until NHTSA contacted eBay in October.
At the time, eBay pointed to a series of restrictions it said were designed to keep unsafe airbags off the marketplace. Approved sellers were required to maintain Automotive Recyclers Association certification and active membership, listings had to include the VIN of the donor vehicle, only used airbags that had never deployed were allowed, recalled airbags were prohibited and sellers were required to follow hazmat shipping rules.
Those rules had been tightening for years, with eBay limiting airbag sales to approved sellers in 2020, adding ARA certification requirements in 2022, requiring donor VINs beginning in 2024 and clarifying the active ARA membership requirement in 2026. As of March 6, 2026, 218 sellers were approved to sell airbags.
eBay said it used both automated and manual processes to identify and remove listings that didn't comply, with noncompliant sellers potentially restricted from selling airbags or removed from the platform entirely.
The company also objected to any interpretation of NHTSA's Special Order that would treat eBay as an entity that manufactures, sells, offers for sale, introduces or imports motor vehicle equipment, stressing that it never takes possession of airbags sold through the site, doesn't provide fulfillment services for them and never holds title to the goods.
"eBay does not itself sell or offer to sell items listed on its site but only acts as a publisher of sellers' listings," the company told regulators.
eBay backed up that argument by pointing NHTSA to its recent Section 230 wins in the Byassee case and the 2023 Environmental Protection Agency lawsuit, which sought to hold the company responsible for hundreds of thousands of illegal pesticides, chemicals and motor vehicle emissions control defeat devices sold through the marketplace.
eBay cited Section 230 in its motion to dismiss, arguing it was "never itself a seller" and instead operated as a third-party marketplace publishing listings created by users.
US District Judge Orelia Merchant dismissed the EPA case in September 2024, finding in part that Section 230 prevented the government from holding eBay liable as the publisher or speaker of third-party listing content.
The Department of Justice initially appealed, but dropped the appeal in April 2025, leaving Merchant's ruling intact.
Liz Morton
A bipartisan bill introduced in December would sunset Section 230 two years after enactment, removing protections that eBay and other online marketplaces have successfully used against claims based on third-party listings.
Liz Morton
Just months after the EPA filed its case, eBay agreed to pay $59 million to settle a separate Drug Enforcement Administration investigation involving thousands of pill presses and encapsulating machines sold through the marketplace.
The DEA alleged eBay failed to comply with Controlled Substances Act requirements for machines that can be used to manufacture counterfeit pills, including reporting and recordkeeping obligations.
Liz Morton
The settlement also required eBay to adopt enhanced compliance policies and controls aimed at preventing prohibited pill-making equipment from being sold through the site. At the time, DOJ described the $59 million agreement as the fourth-largest Controlled Substances Act settlement in history and the first with an ecommerce company.
