I've been a network technician and programmer for many years. There are ways to get a MAC address, but it would need to be done with a Java applet or some sort of program running on the person's machine that sends the information. In any way, you would have to "authorize" it.
Only the "hop" next to you can see the MAC address. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can see it, but the next hop already can't. When you send a website request, it goes through around 8-12 hops on average. If you're in the UK and eBay is in California, it goes through hops located in the UK, US East Coast, then through several major cities until it gets to California. Nobody can see your MAC address except the one right next to you, which is almost always your ISP, and certainly not eBay. For eBay to see your MAC address, you would have to be in the same building as eBay.
And I'm not aware of eBay running any Java applets on anyone's computer. And with Flash it can't be done either. Flash has no networking capabilities to that extent.
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