You can find anything you want on eBay, including porn. A check by this writer this morning brought up 131 offerings under a search for porn, including a promotional poster for the Vivid Girls and a porn site domain name starting at $1,000. The Justice Department, however, wants to find something else on the online auction kings: cause for antitrust action.
Justice began investigating eBay in December over its reported attempts to stop other, smaller Web sites from listing on their own auction pages items being auctioned by eBay customers. The Associated Press says the government has spoken to two smaller e-company executives whose firms are involved in disputes with eBay.
eBay attorney Jay Monahan released a statement Feb. 4 saying company officials "have had some discussions with (Justice staffers) regarding eBay and the online trading business generally. We welcomed that opportunity to talk about our business and to express our serious concerns regarding the practices of some of the aggregators."
Monahan also says eBay's contact with Justice was prompted by competitors, competitors tell the AP Justice instigated the contacts. James Carney, CEO of Bidder's Edge, sued by eBay in federal court in California in December, tells the AP Justice antitrust attorneys want to know about eBay's practices within the online auction business.
"There was no indication of any specific things they were looking at," says Carney. "They were asking us any number of questions ... about how the market works, about specific things in detail regarding practices by eBay toward Bidder's Edge."
Justice also interviewed AuctionWatch.com CEO Rodrigo Sales, who says his confirmation centered around AuctionWatch's dispute with eBay but would not be more specific, according to the AP.
AuctionWatch spent hundreds of thousands developing a "technical workaround" after eBay threatened a lawsuit and started blocking its computers from searching eBay listings, the AP says. Sales says the dispute has occupied "a considerable amount" of AuctionWatch bandwidth as well as dollars they could have used to develop other products.
