Etsy Releases Transparency Report For 2024 Plus New Trust & Safety, Policy Guides

VP Trust & Safety Alice Wu announces new Policy Guides and updates as Etsy releases 2024 Transparency Report.

Key highlights for 2024:

• Etsy says they improved the accuracy and precision of controls by 70%, reducing false positives and enabling them to more efficiently remove listings that violate policies, which contributed to removing 25% fewer listings for violating policies compared to 2023.
• They replaced Handmade Policy with new Creativity Standards, reorganizing rules into new categories and clarifying what is allowed to be sold on Etsy with an emphasis on the role of the seller.
• 22% more listings were removed and Etsy suspended 1.5x more sellers for violating Creativity Standards and Handmade Policy, as compared to enforcement of the Handmade Policy in 2023.
• Etsy improved their ability to identify scams and spam in messages, which led to millions of messages being moved to the spam folder and Etsy banning 3.5M spam accounts - a 9x increase compared to the prior year.
• Overhaul of Adult Nudity and Sexual Content policies led to a 32% decrease in member flags for mature content.

View the full Etsy 2024 Transparency Report for more details.

In a company blog post, Wu provided insights into how Etsy plans to work with buyers and sellers to enhance trust and safety, building a more trusted and transparent marketplace - including AI enforcement, better communication, new ways to appeal enforcement actions, and enhanced account security.

Looking Ahead
As we expand on this progress in 2025, we are focused on empowering our community with better tools, more helpful resources and increased transparency so our buyers and sellers can sell and shop on Etsy with even more confidence. Our goals include:

• Leveraging cutting-edge technology: Our teams use technology to make enforcement more efficient, so we can conduct high-touch, human reviews and provide support where we know our sellers need it most. We’ve long leveraged machine learning to help us keep our marketplace safe, and now we’re deploying LLM-based detection to scale enforcement to more surfaces on listing pages and beyond.
• Increasing transparency: As we leverage stronger detection tools, we know how important it is that our team’s communication be clear and helpful. We’re developing refreshed and more detailed language to help sellers better understand why we take enforcement action on their shop or listings.
• Introducing listing appeals: Even with these improvements to our enforcement experience, we know we won’t always get it right. We currently offer an account-level appeals system, and we’re working on a new listing appeals process so sellers can more easily let us know if they think we removed a listing we shouldn’t have. We’ll begin testing this year, starting with some of the most common policy violation areas, like our Creativity Standards, and expand from there.
• Enhancing account security: We plan to launch account security features to enable Etsy members to even better protect their accounts, including real-time notifications when we detect potential issues, and a self-service account recovery option.

That listing appeal process sounds like a great new addition - but as Etsy seller and ecommerce consultant Cindy Baldassi points out, both Wu and CEO Josh Silverman have made similar promises in the past with very little follow through.

Wu introduced a new resource focused entirely on policy as well, with tips to help sellers at any stage more confidently navigate Etsy's rules and keep their account in good standing: The Ultimate Guide to Etsy Policy.

VP Community and Communications Kelly Clausen and Senior Director, Marketplace Policy Sophie Duba also joined Wu in a fireside chat today, discussing how Etsy crafts policy to keep the marketplace safe.

What do you think of Etsy's 2024 Transparency Report and these new updates and policy guides? Let us know in the comments below!