Are Google and eBay acting out Sopranos finale?

Wall St. is a buzz that eBay appears to have yanked all of their adwords from Google in response to the Google Checkout party at eBay Live.  Around noon ET, Wed June 13, I checked the usual suspect keywords that eBay invests in and found zero ads.

The big question - in this battle who is hurt worse?  Google or eBay.  I'm going to go with eBay, they are much more reliant on that quality google traffic than Google is on eBay's ad spend.  Sure, eBay is a top advertiser, but other advertisers will 'fill-in' so the net loss to Google is substantially lower than eBay probably anticipates.

Also, I made the logical point at the Bear Stearns event yesterday that if eBay continues to disallow Google Checkout on eBay, then Google maybe forced to compete more directly with eBay to get at that GMV.

In any event, things are getting interesting and I'm sure the phone is ringing off the hook between Meg and Eric. I'd love to be a fly on THAT wall!!! 

Meg: Eric, we're going to yank all our ads if you don't stop this party.

Eric: Meg, it's just a party, but do what you feel is  best for your business or we'd be glad to cancel the party if you take google checkout on eBay.

Meg to Matt Ackley: Yank them

(ebay traffic starting June 13 drops by 20-40%)

Comments

[Christopher]

Just shows that ebay has gotten to big and powerful. Is ebay still saying that Google checkout has not proven to be secure? Seems to me they could easily check with some of the larger sites that do take Google checkout, like Buy.com, etc and see if there are problems. I can only hope that one day Google starts an auction site and tells ebay to F off.

[Helen Wilson]

An enquiry seeking an invite to Googles party in Boston got the following reply:

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in our event on 6/14. We appreciate your support. Unfortunately, this event will no longer take place as originally planned. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Though we'd love to celebrate the evening with you, we hope you will enjoy your time in Boston. If you'd like to speak with someone at Google to get more information about how Google can help your business, contact us at checkout-reply@google.com.

Regards,
The Google Checkout Team

[Helen Wilson]

Been a lot of chat on our forums about eBay not taking Google Checkout for a while now.

It's interesting to note that, apart from this action, eBay banned its affiliates from using Google Adwords to link to eBay listings or searches wef June 1st. They also banned affiliates from using MSN and Yahoo! PPC advertising too.

Anyone smell an eBay tie up with Adbrite or something similar about to happen? Or is the 'in house' contextual advertising so long promised by eBay to affiliates really going to happen soon?

There's also rumours of a big 'Web 2.0' announcement by eBay at their eBay Live event in Boston later this month.

Then I look at the heavy promotional adverts for Alibaba (Jack Ma defeated eBay in China) on AuctionBytes, an auction news site that heavily favours eBay news over anyone else. I see Alibaba have opened a European Office, I see the Daily Telegraph in London reports rumours of westward expansion by Alibaba....

The eBay stock price has been steadily faling since they reported their most recent sparkling numbers (albeit inflated by relative weakness of the dollar).

I smell something. Not sure what it is. Anyone else?

[Michael]

Of course. Hani A. Durzy II is a Sopranos fan.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.sopranos/msg/8b4ae23f12e7e621?dmode=source&hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.sopranos/msg/a08a3447b31f25af?dmode=source&hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.sopranos/msg/e875f24c849281f9?dmode=source

[John Lawson]

I am actually PISSED THE HELL OFF! I can not believe eBay is going to jeopardize US without even thinking about how this effects sellers across the board.

That they would arbitrarily pull a stunt like this just to make a case against Google is outrageous. It has no freaking' regard for its customer base (we the sellers) to do this. The are already "screwing" us by not allowing Google Checkout and now they are going to remove the traffic from Google, this is UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLY arrogant.

I don't know if it speaks volumes to Google but it is shouting in my ear "We (eBay) don't give a damn about how this may impact you little seller boy, we just want to prove a point."

I thought President Bush makes stupid war decisions, but Meg just trumped him BIG TIME!

OK, I am done b*tching, but I am really ticked off about this one.

John

[Garth]

I am curious as to how good the adwords traffic was for ebay, they always buy such a huge number of useless keywords you have to wonder if many of those clicks convert. Ebay may lose more traffic than sales.

For google they have suddenly lost one of their largest customers, so there is a potential for a substantial revenue loss.

[Chuck]

Sounds like today might be the time for Affiliates to run a quick ADWORD campaign (provided you have the pages available to not violate the Affiliate UA).

Chuck

[Chuck]

Sounds like today "might" be a good time for eBay affiliates to run an ADWORD campaign.

Chuck

[Billoment]

I already have my account at Google and as soon as they start something like Yahoo is dropping in a couple of days, I will be one of the first to list.
Since our website has opened we are only listing 20% of what we used to on eBay and those are items of excess inventory and to get buyers emails for our marketing. We used to get a lot of visitors to our web site from the click through on our Yahoo auction listings. If Google starts something like that we will be there in a heart beat and eBay will only be getting no more than 10% of the listings from us that they used to get. I am sure that many more sellers will be doing the same and eBay's GMV will drop like a lead baloon.

Bill