Back

ebaY Lies Again ebaY Putting Ads on Seller's Listing Pages

9 Jan 2006

ebaY is a convicted thief, and now once again they are showing themselves as liars. Back in 1999, when ebaY started putting banner ads on their site, they promised their US users that the one thing they would never do, under any circumstances, would be to put advertising on the seller's listing page. Since this space is paid for by the seller with listing and final value fees, it was only fair that the seller should be the only one allowed to use that space to advertise their items.

Each time ebaY introduced a new product that violated this promise, pressure would be brought to bear to remind ebaY of their promise, and ebaY would retrench and make the item optional at the seller's choice. For example, if a seller does not want other sellers like items to appear on their listings, they can opt out of the program. Their listings don't appear on other seller's pages and no other seller's items appear on theirs.

Once again ebaY is showing their willingness to lie to the seller that use their site, by adding advertising to the seller's listing page with their recent announcement that,

"we¹ve recently made several technical changes to allow search engines (such as Google, Yahoo and MSN) to include eBay item pages in their search results. As part of this effort, we also need to help any new buyers -- who arrive at eBay through a search engine -- understand eBay and the breadth of product that is available. This week we¹re making a change to the top of the item page that only people visiting eBay from a search engine will see. This change adds a ³welcome² message, a link to learn about eBay, and two links to additional items."

By putting links to other like items or anything else, not belonging to the seller, this is adding advertising to the seller¹s listing page. To put it bluntly, it makes a liar out of ebaY, no matter what the excuse, and they need to reconsider whether they are going to blatantly lie to their sellers, after making promises they said they would never break. If they want to address the needs of new users, all they have to do is add a new user link to the toolbar appearing on every ebaY page ­ not violate their cast in concrete promises..

Check out our new industry discussion site TAGchat-OAI

Want to assist TAG in continuing its work? Sign up for a voluntary subscription to TAGnotes, and provide support that will keep information coming to your email boxes and the lights on at our websites. To purchase a voluntary subscription, click on the button that follows. If you do not want to pay for the voluntary subscription but still want to receive our newsletter, enter your email address below the button.