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eBay Looking for Allies Against Google
Vitaly Friedman writes "A report in the Wall Street Journal today talks about how eBay is looking for partners to defend against the growing threat of Google. Specifically, Google Base and the payment system in the works in Mountain View are seen as possible dangers to eBay's auctions and PayPal payment operations, says the report. Google Talk just throws some salt in the wounds by looking for a toehold in Skype's turf."
Microsoft and Yahoo and AOL are obvious partners they could work with if they really see those as friendlier than Google
Huh?
So, you're saying that Steve Jobs should have stated that Google, a non-existant company, was the enemy?
"Salt in the wounds". Whose wounds? Competition is a good thing for most of us.
Actually I'll welcome anyone other than Paypal.
I hope google mops the floor with paypal.
Now we finally know what the "e" stands for in eBay. Yep you guessed it, "Evil". If you're not on Google's side you must be wrong.
I'm sick of essentially being blackmailed by people I buy stuff off who refuse to give me feedback until I've given them feedback, even though I've just paid them £100 for an item they are yet to post.
And fucking the Katrina victims out of Something Awful's donations was the straw that broke the donkey's back.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
So, you're saying that Steve Jobs should have stated that Google, a non-existant company, was the enemy?
;)
Yes, if he truly was a visionary
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Is that eBay will be forced to stop screwing their customers http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and improve their service.
Oh the joys of competition.
Finally, a tech company that will pay handsomely for my military skills when I get out. But how will I lead my commando team against the Axis-of-Do-No-Evil without being spotted on Google Earth? Confound it!
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
So, eBay is afraid of Google.
I've heard many complaints so far about both eBay and PayPal - could it be that they feel Google's service will be beta^Hter?
So see if I care... they can get all the partners they want, but if Google rolls out a superior service, they can either adapt or go sulk in the corner.
Ignore this signature. By order.
You don't need an ally. Just build a better widget! How do you think Google, Linux, etc. came from being an underdog?
What a world we would live in where we were all forced to use xfig to draw pictures, use pine and emacs, and program in Lisp and plain ole C! I don't know if that would be good or bad. Would the average human be better off if they knew how to use grep ?
a. How about bringing back a real archive of auction results. Not the crummy 2 week limit in place now.
b. Penalize bulk category flooders. Some categories are filled with sellers listing the same item over and over again. They should be forced to use the bulk option.
c. 0 rated sellers should not be allowed to list without verified bank account/address info.
d. Allow sellers to set feedback threshold restrictions on buyers.
e. Finally, ebay should stop spamming its own users with "deals" and credit card offers.
Maybe if Paypal didn't confiscate its customers' money at will, they wouldn't have this problem.
Paypal scrapes a % of your money for every transfer and they're making standard bank interest. If competition seeps in, they'll aim for the lowest fees. More competition is better for the consumer now.
God spoke to me.
Can I be against both?
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
Actually he said something like "Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry... the entire information age, was George Orwell right about 1984?"
I think it was kinda linked to the commercial.
So with Google and their support of China...does this mean when I go to purchase a product using Google Pay that the cost will be calculated in Chinese yaun?
I actually was willing to learn to type "http://www.google.com" instead of "http://www.altavista.com" to search on Google; even from the outset, no other search engine came close to their level of quality (read: good search results).
Nowadays, Wal-Mart routinely grinds competition unto the dust. Woe betide the small businessman whose future neighbor is a Wal-Mart Supercenter. They're big, monopolistic, anti-competitive, predatory . . . all of the wonderfully evil traits which characterize success in our free enterpise system. This makes them fairly well hated, the price of success.
Nowadays, Google is percieved as the ultimate digital destructor - crushing internet opposition wherever it rises, brutally redefining markets and networking in that fashion most likely to lead to their own growth and the demise of competing technologies.
Either you love free enterprise or you hate it - either way, I wouldn't trust it!
I would jump on a paypal alternative. I juat want to use my online payment service to buy adult goods along with the non adult goods. I hate that Paypal makes a distinction, and doesn't allow that. The alternatives for payment for adult goods just aren't widespread enough to use, in my opinion.
Nothing hides evidence like a stew. -Gus Pratt
Next ally? Don't wait any longer and hire some nigerians to fill google base with some brand new laptops and dslrs.
Considering that no matter what you search on Google you get an EBay ad, it's funny that they are then fighting against google, who provides a huge portion of their advertisement.
can't they just wait until steve ballmer f***ing kills google
and i should feel sorry for ebay why?
the answer is simple. compete. offer more, better, cheaper, faster, and easier than google does.
good luck ebay!
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Between the cleaner UI of a bookmarking system, the tagging, and purposefully active userbase I'm hoping fyndr can put a, yeah yeah, web2.0 face on the old web1.0 beast.
Here in Silicon Valley, the most often spoken line is now "We would fund your company, it's brilliant, but Google would just copy it, so no."
Google doesnt even have to do anything anymore... the fear of Google is killing the whole tech industry. They are the online version of Walmart, crushing every business within their grasp, and forcing everyone to play by their rules.
Just ask any online business not on page 1 of a search result, if you can find one that's still in business that is.
Anything Google even might possibly copy, isn't happening at all, just like Microsoft used to do - and did very well. Google will crush everyone just as effectively in the end.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Some of us enjoy having things forced down our throats. :)
Microsoft and eBay are victims of their own success. They played the game and shut down every other player. They won. Now they are on top and seemingly nobody can touch them. The problem is that they are now making the rules. And to everybody else, that doesn't seem fair.
Now Google has made their own game and a lot of people are playing it. Google is making new rules. Everybody's happy about that because they have a choice now. But the day will come when people don't want to play by eBay's, Microsoft's or Google's rules. People will once again feel trapped and left with no good optios. Then google will be evil and the newest significant startup will be the hero.
Google is owned by the stockholders just like MS and eBay. The same greed for money will become more and more obvious to anybody who isn't love-sick.
echo hell yes > /tmp/temp_a.txt; /tmp/temp_a.txt; /tmp/temp_a.txt;
echo hell no >>
grep -v no
Don't save Windows XP! http://www.petitiononline.com/jjw1xp/petition.html
Don't you mean "All your bays are belong to us?"
as much as I hate government regulation (except in the case of capitalism) eBay needs a little regulation since they have been screwing just about every 'customer' they have, not to mention the crap they pulled with something awful's katrina donations. just because google is trying to expand the market doesn't make them evil, it makes them the good guy. the only reason eBay is scared is because every other auction/pay service site has 1/100th of a percent of the publicity that they have but google has the ability to challenge them. i'm rooting for google on this one.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Huh, e-bay? Afraid that you might have to actually do something about the fraud and deception that routinely happens in your auctions? Afraid that you might have to rein in Paypal and keep them from treating your customers, your only asset, like red-headed stepchildren? Afraid that you might actually have to return to the business model that you started with and provide real service again? Or are you really afraid that you will have to scale back your profits to something more reasonable with some competition? The last few things I sold on e-bay cost me nearly 11% of the auction price by the time all was said and done.
I don't think this is anything but good!
from TFA: "Most" of eBay's annual US$400 million marketing budget goes to Google, and shareholders would surely notice the loss of that large a sum." 400mil annually is a drop in the bucket for Google.
If Ebay would cut it's fees it would have nothing to fear from Google. But ebay rather likes increasing it's fees at 2 to 4 times the rate of inflation.
A search for George Bush provides:
George Bush
Looking for George Bush?
Find exactly what you want today.
www.eBay.com
A search for Eggs provides:
Eggs
All your favorite collectibles!
Eggs and more -aff
Ebay.com
A search for Milk provides:
Milk
Save on Glass and Glassware!
Milk and more -aff
Ebay.com
In fact, I dare you to find a noun you can search for on google without coming up with an eBay add. As near as I can tell, eBay is Google's single largest advertiser. If they want to hurt google, they should start by cutting off some funding.
I hope google does this, because I think the fees for ebay + fees for paypal are too steep, especially on smaller items.
The Uniform Commercial Code is the governing regulation for all accounts appraised by debt notes from the Federal Reserve System. What should hint everyone as "odd" is the fact that PayPal transacts a majority of its service in USD and yet the agents of PayPal have no qualifications (meaning merit and experience) in abiding by the aspects of Offer and Acceptance relevant in commerce. Agents of PayPal have one typical, worldly gut reaction to criticism and is similar to various other services offered from jail: seizure. Also, PayPal does not allow unhindered movement of funds to the account holder, and frivolously delegates authority of funds without ackowledging that PayPal is in-deed been Trusted to hold the funds on behalf of the account holder.
In all manners of misplaced judgment by agents of PayPal, there is a distinct measure of tresspass that is difficult to redress because such service is evidence of misplaced faith and trust in a service that is neither correlated with banking under the Uniform Commercial Code. I've lost USD 300 to PayPal, from the beginning when someone created an account on my behalf and without permittion, then moving fund into that account as an antic to compel me to ship a predefined goods and services at the mercy of their payment method.
Anyone that uses PayPal will surely know they are on borrowed time. PayPal apparrently moves the collected share of funds to no other place but Germany, and holds a pooled account with claims to Wells Fargo to generate interest. There you have it.
I think there is an equal amount of concern to agents of Google, thereby not evincing any attraction to reserve the same controlls of any currency or trust regulation in its service as conferred from the claimants and onto Google. Google, for the life of its service and employs, is an ADVERTISING AGENCY. Google has no value, and is more evidence to create its measurements of currency to debase the currency trusted to it -- no different than PayPal. Every one of them, just as PayPal, are evidencing their intentional ignorance to move societies into their pretended form of commerce, ignoring the splendor and pragma of true government of the people; a service oriented by popularity of ignorance, than the lectors of intellect.
As far as I can determine, any property within the grasp of PayPal will be hidden as PayPal Dollars -- no different than the speculations of Google to have its Google Coins. All I can say is the criminals in that Federal Reserve, Inc, have stopped the publishing of the M3 Money Supply and Gold and Silver is rising at a rate evincing the USD is about to collapse. PayPal Dollars and Google Coins are not shares to the stock of those corporations, but mismanaged currency of a collapsing economy of debt notes to no value in HJR 192.
without prejudice
I tried all three of your samples and did not get the ebay ad returned
Perhaps its targeted advertising somehow? I know I don't have any ebay cookies in my cookie jar.
Google? What are you talking about? He should have seen Microsoft as the enemy, you dolt.
"God deliver us from our friends, we can handle the enemy." -Patton
Paypal has been an extremely customer hostile company for many years. The only reason a lot of people use them is there's no viable alternative. If Google come up with something good, nothing can save paypal from its own history.
Trust me, they're making money somewhere.
Don't use eBay. eBay has been a festering pile of shit for many years. I have little sympathy for people who are just realizing this. Believe it or not, I live a full and rewarding life, and I don't buy or sell anything on eBay at all!
was George Orwell right about 1984?
He was right, he's just about 30 years off. Wait 8 years to see why 2014 *will* be like '1984'.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Why, I remember having to memorize the IP addresses of sites which I wanted to go back to - and they had to be entered in binary! Seriously, you kids and your name services and your bookmarks and your heliotropes and your aeroplanes . . . all this technology is getting to be too much.
i must say i would not be sad to see the end of all this Ebay marketing crap and it's about time they sorted out there dedicated bunch of spammers as well the Linux boxes dont get bothered but the works windBloZe box get crippled with Ebay crap and i dont even have an Ebay account and aint never gunna get one either ...
Pete .
Quote a different source, please. FOX News takes it in the butt.
Hay you want to fix paypal and save yourself from Google.
Make it so I can pay for porn with paypal again.
Zbeast
is that when you win an auction is practically a binding contract; you can't just flippantly decide that you don't want the thing anymore or that you found a better price somewhere else.
Just try selling a handful of things on Craigslist and see for yourself whether people are flaky when there's no obligation to carry through on commitments. Unless Google can offer something that's binding I don't see it attracting EBay's seller community.
Rishi Chopra
www.rishichopra.org
I don't think you can sell animals on ebay, so that's probbably why they don't have a google clickthrough. Of course they sell all the dog "accessories" though, but still no clickthrough for dog bed.
AccountKiller
Just make it free or cheap enough and they won't have any problems. There will be no reason to choose google pay system if paypal will be cheap/free. Paypal works fine.
I have been a seller on FleeBay since Feb 2000, and around 2004 I finally gave up since Meg and company kept screwing us sellers around, and around, fees, changes in policy, in online payment options, in fees, in forms, in fees :) (get the point)... And with little to no seller support. If Google bends Meg and Co. over the preverbial table I'm all for it. Google can be the next evil empire for as far as I care. In the end someone takes the battan from the powers that be, it is time for a change of pain flavor, Google's my choice for the pain adminstrator.
Would anyone be sad if Google won? Every time I go to ebay to search for something it's all the same - pirate game boy games from asia made to look genuine (and undercutting genuine items), pirate dvd's made to look semi-genuine, scams involving charging $2 for an item with $extortionate for postage (which is against eBay's TOS, yet still goes on all of the time...) It seems that they really don't give a shit what goes on unless a big corporation gets in touch and asks them to pull a legitimate auction.
As long as google will take some responsibility and remove blatant scams they have my wholehearted support - and the support of the genuine traders which eBay depends upon.
Though, eventually the currency system should be put back in the hands of the government.
Paying a 2-5% "TAX" to private companies like Paypal, or Google or VISA could be dangerous.
In the short term, it is better to have multiple competitive alternatives.
But in the long run, electronic currency is a natural monopoly and should be controlled by the government for obvious reasons.
...if Google controls the online payment process, the seller's feedback would be irrelevant as Google's payment system would automatically know if they had been paid in full or not.
The only manual feedback would come from buyer's verifying whether the product they bought was as advertised and satisfactory.
- tokengeekgrrl
Why, oh why can't the future be like Brave New World instead? Seriously, I find nothing at all wrong with happy drugs, mindless orgies on a weekly basis and 50-60 years of youth.
not a liability. Google in the past has been willing to buy companies with a quality product. Bill this to investors as how they can get their money back in a few years.
When they say, "Google would copy it," you say, "as soon as there's the slightest rumor of that, we offer to sell to them. If the product area stays below google's radar, we make money. If it doesn't, then we make our product good enough that they'd be better off buying us." An acquisition is generally a much more likely exit strategy than an IPO anyways.
Furthermore, every good idea doesn't have to be a new company. If you want to make something, and you think google is in a better position to do it, go pitch it to google and get hired. There is as much opportunity for entrepreneurial skill within companies as there is in starting new ones.
Doesnt it seem like everytime some new company comes around and gets good in 1 area, others are afraid of it, collaborate to take it down and while doing so Microsoft sneaks up out of no where and takes over. Either that or Microsoft was part of the collaboration to help another company and then backstabs them and then takes over
Mod parent +2 Funny -- Come on, that's a good pun.
"eBay is looking for partners to defend against the growing threat of Google."
They could perhaps try being creative for once. I haven't seen any new ideas from eBay beyond "Yeah, we can buy PayPal!" I'm personally sick of having to sift through offers of "information CDs" and "ZOMG just like the real thing only not!" to get to what I want, to the point where I think eBay could seriously use a personal blacklist feature for blocking search results from certain sellers.
If nothing else, they need to encourage sellers to use the Dutch Auction feature more instead of cluttering the system with 27 identical simultaneous auctions.
g. Get reasonable about locations. I live less than 10 miles from the Canada/USA border and have a postal address in both countries. Unfortunately my bank is in Canada, so eBay often won't allow me to bid on USA auctions even though I'm able to pay in USD and accept domestic shipping.
Paypal treats its customers like SHIT. Ebay has started to crack down on even legit sellers now.. asking for receipts, supplier info etc etc, otherwise you dont get the account back. THEY FUCKING NEED COMPETITION. They are the only ones doing what they do so people dont have a choice. Ebay=evil Paypal=more evil
There are many alternatives to paypal, but none are widely used enough to be useful. I really hope that a google payment system will provide a decent alternative.
eBay currently gets a huge percentage of it's traffic through paid advertising with Google.
Now, because Google might infringe upon it's payment system and dabble a bit in online auctions, eBay will move it's advertising focus to someone like Yahoo or MSN that wouldn't send them anywhere near the referrals they get from Google?
Anyone else besides me see that concept being a bit like tossing the baby out with the bathwater?
Don't get me wrong, I'm quite willing to admit that I am hopelessly eBay addicted. I can also say that the chances of Google coming up with an auction site that would lure me away from eBay are somewhere between slim and none.
As for PayPal, while I have personally never had any problems, there are enough horror stories around to make any rational person realize that they COULD happen to anyone. Who remembers, BTW, that eBay bought PayPal because, quite frankly, PayPal was kicking eBay's original online payment system's butt, to put it mildly. If Google can do a better job with their online payment system, then by all means, let the consumer benefit, and let the chips fall where they may.
Like others have mentioned, eBay's (and PayPal's) achilles heel is their abominable customer service, on those occasions when a user needs some assistance. Their current policy is patterned, no doubt, like the model of some Hollywood version of the evil mega-insurance company. Just slam the door in the complaintant's face, and give them the double & triple dodge & shuffle untill they just give up in disgust and go away.
Although I have been personally extremely fortunate to have not needed assistance from eBay or PayPal on more than a few occasions, I can attest to the fact that getting anything accomplished is more than frustrating, it's damn near impossible. (HINT: BE PERSISTANT, REFUSE to go away, and seach the net for a way to contact a real, honest-to-goodness, live, human-type Supervisor. They can and will help you, *IF* you can just figure out how in the world to contact one in the first place.)
Here's a novel suggestion to eBay:
Instead of shifting your advertising budget to a venue that will give you LESS business instead of more, divert some ad dollars into some semblance of REAL Customer Service instead. Beat your opposition in the good old fashioned capitalist way. Build a better mousetrap, etc., etc.
Of course, you could also just opt for the new capitalism model, buy out your competition instead of going head to head against them in a free marketplace. Simply buyout Google like you did PayPal, and then you'd be the big, bad Internet bully everyone likes to think Google will someday become, instead.
DaveJ45
Differences between how you act when some one is watching, and how you act when no one is watching, define who you are
Competition is good for the market. eBay (and friends) needs to cowboy up and start innovating, or drawing support the old fashioned way.
Very promissing http://www.vast.com/ with unique model od clasifieds redistribution...
eBay can easily counter Google by beating them at their own game.
Find out what Google does, and do it better!
Ok! Let's get started.
Goggle Corporate Principle #1: Do no Evil.
Ummmm.... We all know how eBay and PayPal treat their customers like crap.
Yeah... Forget it eBay. Compared to the likes of you, MSFT and Yahoo! Google still has such goodwill (even with their China thing) that you can't compete. If Google decide to get into online auctions, eBay will die. That simple. And no one will shed a tear.
BTW is gauction.com taken?
maybe ebay needs to stop increasing their listings fees for one.. stop requiring your powersellers to switch to bogus pieces of software after using a different piece of software for over 4 years for two.. and to start actually making my business money for three.. none of things will be stopped.. ahh well
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Ebay was good..for about the first year after it arrived. Its just a life support system for sketchy wholesalers and prima-donna powersellers.
The following is an exchange I had with ebay:
Background: We all know power-sellers jack their shipping to cover the cost of them offering stuff at 1 penny. However if you read Ebays ToS this violates it.
I found a seller selling a USB dongle, domestic shipping via USPS (standard air mail, no insurance, etc). After an exchange with ebay, I was told that "Ebay trusts their sellers to set appropriate ship amounts".
Reading their ToS further you discover that its also a violation to list the handling price as a percentage of the final fee. I found several listings by an individual doing just that. I was given the same form letter.
Ebay is junk. They do nothing but protect their power-sellers. Many power-sellers hold feedback hostage. When you feedback like:
Joeblow - item recieved broken, did not respond to e-mails, attempted to call, would not speak with me, etc
Powerseller1111 - BAD EBAYER STAY AWAY!!!
you know exactly what happened. If ebay actually cared about the integrity of its system it would institute a double blind feedback system where each user inputs their feedback then its applied when both have inputed and saved it.
It was another nice idea that got ruined by the internet.