This is great... :
eBay Bans Sellers from Using Google Checkout
eBay is banning sellers from requesting payment through Google Checkout. The online auction giant updated its Safe Payments policy this week to add Google's new payment service, Google Checkout to its list of online payment methods not permitted on eBay.
Obviously there is no technical (or other 'real' reason) for eBay to ban Google Checkout. The only reason is that eBay is a de-facto monopoly in their space and they want to maintain this monopoly using this ban.
I'm sure eBay will come up with countless explanations as to why they cannot let their merchants be exposed to Google Checkout....
...Just like Google has lots of bullshit technical and user experience explanations as to why its publishers are banned from showing other contextual ads on pages that carry AdSense. The only real reason for this ban is, again, to maintain Google's de-facto monopoly in the contextual ad market.
That's why I think this turn of events is so sweet.
I have a gut feeling as to where this is going, so I'll provide a preemptive link to this post, in case Google starts whining about eBay misusing its monopoly to ban competition.
More on this on TechDirt, TechEffect, eBay Strategies and Mashable.
I have to agree. It's excellent gamesmanship and just reward.
Posted by: Randy Charles Morin | July 06, 2006 at 06:42 PM