eBay boots off Skype rival

eBay, still smarting from Monday's $1.43bn admission of Skype's failure, last night deleted auctions that carried click-to-call buttons for VoIP rival Jajah. Jajah released its embeddable buttons last week, and decided to take the provocative step of promoting a special version for eBay auctions. Businessweek claimed there had …

[leslie]

ebay being nasty ?

next you'l tell me they dont like google checkout...........

Roll on google auctions........

[Dillon Pyron]

Restraint of trade?

IANAL, but this seems to smack of restraint of trade. eBay owns Skype, a VoIP provider, and they don't want another provider working. Whether or not eBay has taken advantage of its purchase of Skype is totally beyond the point.

But, most importantly, IANAL, I pay them lots of money. Too much money, it seems.

[Scott]

More anti-competitive practices from eBay? Who'd have thought!

There is no basis for eBay to ban Google Checkout, which by all indications is just like Paypal at the worst, but more likely substantially better in that it doesn't promote a false sense of security like "Seller Protection" or "Buyer Protection" (when in reality, these things are just the same old rules that govern any credit card or e-check transaction, and really only protect against the most preventable forms of fraud).

There's no basis to ban a halfway useful voice chat medium either. It's just sad that all corporations who have a good product at one time seem to get so big and inept once they've cornered one market, that they have to resort to abusing their monopolies to force their customers to make use of their inferior side-offerings.

I look forward to the day that the USDOJ sets its sights on eBay and repeats the farce that it played with Microsoft. Even if nothing changes, it's still good for entertainment!

[Sally]

Restraint of trade?

Can I set up an AT&T cell phone shop within a Verizon store? If the Verizon guys complain and toss me out, is that restraint of trade?

[JohnG]

Restraint of trade?

Say someone tried to open an AT&T cell phone shop within a shopping mall whose owners had shares in Verizon - if the mall then moved to close the store, that might be a restraint on trade. Of course, US law maybe different to UK and EU law in this respect.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Sally

Your analogy is flawed, because eBay is an auction house, not a VOIP provider.

[SGS]

eBa(b)y throws toys out of its pram.

Most eBay users know it can sometimes be inconsistent, e.g. its policy on links within item descriptions.

Some links get through uncecked, while others see your item delisted and you warned for abuse of eBay rules. Seems all very arbitrary, except when eBay wants to 'search and destroy' - as in their offensive against Jajah and its Buttons.

(BTW, are other VOIP providers also being targeted by eBay?)

eBay is rightly kicking itself due to its poor investment and is also clearly irritated by Jajah being more user-friendly than skype. This, however, do not justify its childish and dictatorial behavior.

Jajah and its Buttons and suchlike are nothing more sinister than intelligent communication tools, which can only boost eBay's trade and, therefore, its revenues.

eBay made a dreadful investment outside of its core business and tried to impose skype as the sole option for voice communications between its members. In a free society, that is simply unacceptable. No-one can stop communication.

If eBay had bought Hotmail, who would have accepted being dictated to that all e-mail communications had to go via Hotmail?

Similarly - and more pertinently, given that eBay owns PayPal - who would ever accept eBay imposing PayPal as the only means of payment?

The answer to both questions is 'nobody'.

Ultimately, eBay users welcome the security that eBay's trading platforms provide, so they're not going to risk that security simply because they can actually talk with one another.

Grow up, Ebay!

p.s. A similar thread to this on an eBay UK forum has - surprise, surpise - "disappeared".