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ebaY SLOW? - This is WHY
 

***** EDITORIAL ON EBAY ACCESS PROBLEMS *****

March 2001
We have been reporting on, posting and pondering this problem for several days. Users who access ebaY through RoadRunner and other high speed providers are getting very slow access to ebaY. We could not figure out the WHY but today an email from a subscriber put the last piece of the puzzle in place and now we can intelligently theorize the why. The email was about a conversation the subscriber had with an Exodus techie during the big ebaY outage in June of 99.

Here are the pieces of the puzzle -
1. The problem is EBAY not Exodus not Road Runner (RR) Starband, Earthlink Broadband (all have been affected)or any other Service Provider. It is also not a blockage on the internet. The fact that safeweb and other anonymizers works to speed up access proves it. ebaY is blocking a percentage of access to certain Service Providers - if you hide the Internet Protocol address from ebaY by coming in through the anonymizer, your access is fine. So you can use RR (or any other of the restricted providers) directly - and not get in to ebaY, but if you use RR and go through an anonymizer, you can access ebaY with no problem.

2. ebaY has had very few crashes in March as compared to Feb - where they had crashes almost daily. We track this 24/7 and this has been a very uniquely quiet period. Word on the street is that ebaY has not purchased any equipment, or actually made any substantive changes to account for increased stability.

3. There is a quarterly report coming up soon,and the market climate is very bearish.

4. We predict that an insider stock sale is planned - we were correct in our October predictions and analysis, and are equally sure this time too.

5. This problem started on or about the 15th. This method of access control was tested at the beginning of the month to see if it would work. Look at the thread on ebaY at Slow Site Access You will see access complaints on the 8th and 9th and then everything is fine until the 15th.

6. The reason the relisting glitch was not addressed or acknowledged, and the process was delayed, was so ebaY would get past their SEC filing and quarterly report. They are hiding ALL site problems. ebaY knew about this problem on the 15th and did not even acknowledge it until the 23rd. They had evidence both from users and from at least one third party service provider.

Our conclusion is that what you have here is ebaY having Exodus close down a percentage of access to the site so this eternally unstable site stays stable and crashes are prevented or minimized.
In the current stock market environment ebaY does not want anything to foul up their quarterly report. They used this method to recover from crashes in June 1999, and they are expanding the usage of this control. In TAG's opinion they are doing this to manipulate their stock price by hiding their site instability problems. They are also receiving full fees from their sellers, while not providing full service. If our theories prove accurate, then ebaY is guilty of at best, very unethical activities, and at worst actionable fraud.

ALL networks have problems, but usually they address them as they come up. RR has problems, ATT has problems - and the overall internet traffic report over the last two weeks has been dreadful. THIS DOES NOT CHANGE EBAYS SITUATION. This access problem is AT EBAY. If it was not at ebaY the anonymizer sites would not work - just that plain and simple. If you come into ebaY with your provider exposed you can't get in, if you come into ebaY cloaked by an anonymizer, everything else being equal, you get in without problem. As far as we can discern, there is only ONE reason for that, and that is EBAY IS RESTRICTING ACCESS to protect their obviously shaky infrastructure. -TAG