eBay - Xenophobic With a Capital Z

Not long back I listed some early Persian postage stamps on eBay and promptly had my listings removed due to Iran being one of eBay’s banned product countries.

Persia and Iran.  Now what in the world do early Persia and modern day Iran have in common?  Apart from occupying the same land space, that is.  Early Persia was nothing like Iran, it had a different administration, different attitudes to other countries, and its leader, the Shah, was a good friend of the American people who sheltered and befriended the exiled Shah and his family.

So why the U-turn?  Why are stamps portraying the Shah of Persia, a man the Americans presumably once held in high esteem, now banned from sale on eBay?  And what on earth does any of this have to do with sellers outside of America whose countries don’t punish their citizens for collecting and selling items produced many years ago?

More specifically, why ban my Persian stamps from selling on eBay when hundreds of similar listings were left to run?

It makes me wonder: what about Persian carpets, can they be sold at the site or does eBay take issue with them too?