Subject:
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Re: "Justice Probes eBay for Antitrust"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Sun, 6 Feb 2000 00:47:13 GMT
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Reply-To:
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Troy Cefaratti <MNEMENTH@spamlessNACS.NET>
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Viewed:
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1251 times
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<RANT>
After reading the article mentioned, the other messages in this thread, and
some of the thread referenced at Auction Watch, I must say that I just don't
understand where the anti-trust violations are. Granted, eBay is the
dominant player in the market. But it is not the only one. Granted eBay
blows chunks at times and there are some major problems with it. But that
doesn't make it illegal.
It was my (Perhaps limited) understanding that the anti-trust laws were to
keep monopolies in one industry from using their dominance in THAT industry
to take over OTHER industries, ala Microsoft with their operating system and
bundled internet browser. I do not see any information showing that eBay is
trying to take over ANY other industry, just trying to preserve their market
in their existing industry. Nor do I see any info that they are using
unfair trade practices within their own industry to maintain their position.
Neither of the sites referenced are in the same business as eBay in my
opionion
eBay is an auction LISTING service. Auction Watch and Bidders Edge seem to
be auction info/aggregation sites. I do not think that you can list
auctions directly with them. Where is the anti-trust violation or unfair
trade practice in preventing someone from stealing your data? Data that is
integral to your business mind you. And yes, the auction listings are
integral to eBays business. That is how they generate traffic to their
site. If you can view this stuff elsewhere, then traffic to eBays site will
decrease, and so will their ability to maintain revenue.
Not to mention that the other cites GAIN revenue by putting their ads
together with eBays content. This seems stikingly similar to previous court
cases involving framing, where news "aggregation" sites (being compared to
the auction "aggregation" sites) would simply just put the news articles
from other sites within a frame on their page. Thus gaining revenue from
the ads that they ran in the frame while using the content from legitimate
news sites. If I am not mistaken, this was viewed to be illegal by the
courts. I see no difference between this and what Auction Watch and Bidders
Edge do.
If this investigation was instigated by another auction listing site which
was alledging fowl play, then I might view it differently. But it is not.
And there ARE other auctions sites out there. Yahoo runs one. Up until
recently there was BRICKS. There is Serious Collector. There are numerous
individually run auctions. All of which are smaller then eBay. But none of
which seem to be complaining about it.
If anyone should be investigated for anti-trust, it should be Yahoo. They
seem to be following Microsofts example to the letter. Lets see....dominant
"portal" site....wants to be dominant auction site....let's see....FREE
Auctions! Sound familiar? I'll point out that there is a clause in their
user agreement that will allow them to charge fees in the future. Probably
around the time that gain enough market share.
It would be nice if there was another auction site available that would
provide better services. But there isn't. Perhaps Auction Watch and
Bidders Edge should stop trying to sneak in the backdoor to make their money
clinging to the coat tails of eBay and do something novel, like start their
own auction listing service. Or maybe that was the plan from the start!
Steal all the traffic away from eBay FIRST by allowing access to their
auctions, THEN once you get enough traffic, start letting people list
auctions at your site. Of course, I'd bet they'd be pissed if eBay then
went and started linking to THEIR auctions!
</RANT>
That being said, I do not like eBay much from a sellers point of view. But
I'm starting to like it more and more as time goes on. This new Mister
Lister program is really neat. :) Now if it just didn't cost so much!
Troy
Scott-A <scott-arthur@eh105jb.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:FpGp1s.43E@lugnet.com...
> Looks like ebay may have been up to no good - trying to cut off smaller
> auction sites. Here's the 1st and 2nd paras:
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department is investigating whether eBay • Inc.,
> the world's largest online auction site, violated federal antitrust laws • in
> its actions toward smaller Internet rivals.
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> The probe, which has been underway since December but still is in its • early
> stages, is focused on eBay's attempts - including a federal lawsuit • against
> one competitor and threats to sue another - to prevent smaller Web • companies
> from listing on their own sites items being auctioned by eBay's customers.
>
>
> See the story:
>
> http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000204/17/ebay-investigation
>
>
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | "Justice Probes eBay for Antitrust"
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| Looks like ebay may have been up to no good - trying to cut off smaller auction sites. Here's the 1st and 2nd paras: WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department is investigating whether eBay Inc., the world's largest online auction site, violated (...) (25 years ago, 5-Feb-00, to lugnet.market.theory)
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