posted on March 8, 2001 07:20:51 AM
Actually, the thought has crossed my mind that the two have kissed and made up...kind of huddled off in a corner and discussed this Fairmarket deal, and maybe this has some bearing on the new fees AW has decided to sock us with. Not possibly some forest we're not seeing for the trees?
How ironic if it were found out, there was something going on in closed quarters, to actually TRY to run off the small sellers?
Is AW being influenced by "big boys?"Or, is AW in cahoots with Fairmarket?
posted on March 8, 2001 07:43:41 AM
I agree. Could a core reason for the new fees be a quiet settlement between eBay and AuctionWatch?
We know Bidder's Edge had to pay eBay to settle up, and we know eBay gets a license fee from BIDXS and others for the 'right' to spider its listings. eBay would have no credibility to do so if it let AuctionWatch off the hook scot free.
Besides the fact that eBay's actions are anti-Internet and likely unenforceable, the strange fact remains that we haven't heard anything about the eBay / AuctionWatch battle for quite some time. Why hasn't eBay taken AuctionWatch to court along with BiddersEdge?
posted on March 8, 2001 08:04:23 AM
Now that eBay's lock on the market is firmly established and has withstood the challenge of Yahoo and Amazon, I don't think they give a sh!t about AW searching their site. Their fear was that multi-site searches would level the playing field and lower the barrier to new competitors entering the market.
For lots of reasons, multi-site search engines have not helped provide a competitive marketplace. eBay owns 80% of the market and AW sends eBay 80% of their search traffic (my guess, but I have some experience with this). If eBay tried to get AW to pay for the data and AW said "forget it", would eBay be better off or not being out of the AW search?
eBay's ONLY concern (IMO) is whether a search engine may threaten their market share. All that crap about performance issues and having out-of-date search data is just that - a bunch of crap. Their own search is often days behind actual listings.
I believe eBay sued BiddersEdge first because BE had fewer resources to fight them than AW. After they won that, they could point to any search that threatened them, including AW, and have it shut down at no cost. Because of current market conditions, they don't care about AW's search, IMO.
Now, if Yahoo decided they wanted to include eBay listings in THEIR search, I imagine there would be plenty of hollering about that and they could point to the BE case and shut Yahoo down more easily or make them agree to their licensing fees - eBay's choice.
I have no idea what the settlement amount was with BiddersEdge, but would not be surprised if it was $1 just so eBay could say BE paid them an undisclosed amount.
posted on March 8, 2001 08:20:23 AM
"We know Bidder's Edge had to pay eBay to settle up, and we know eBay gets a license fee from BIDXS and others for the 'right' to spider its listings. eBay would have no credibility to do so if it let AuctionWatch off the hook scot free."
BE paid, but could you buy a hamburger for it?
This whole licensing thing was a smart move on eBay's part. It got the FTC off their back about being a monopoly because now they are willing to share their data, but only on their terms. The sites I have seen using this license do not spider eBay data, they just do a search on eBay and reformat the results for display on their own site. Very different. And eBay always gets its listings segregated from the other sites, which has always been one of their main concerns (despite comments made to the press otherwise). The license is not about money (yet), it's about control.
If you win a suit against one company, you are not OBLIGATED to go after every other company that does the same thing, with the exception of defending copyright, trademarks, and patents. I agree that by not going after AW, it would make eBay's case weaker if a site they didn't like started searching them and they decided to sue. Who has the money to fight with eBay?
If a site threatens eBay, they'll go after them. If not, they don't care. Very simple.
posted on March 8, 2001 09:58:53 AM
"And eBay always gets its listings segregated from the other sites, which has always been one of their main concerns "
Jim,
My point is that AW displays eBay listings alongside other sites. Also, AW spiders eBay.
Maybe eBay has given up, realizing its position is big-bully and anti-Internet.
posted on March 8, 2001 10:06:39 AM
Could be... I think they don't care anymore because AW's search is not a threat to their market and does not significantly help the smaller sites (IMO).
AW lists items in auction-ending order, ensuring that eBay will get 80% of the traffic because they have 80% of the listings. In our search, we did not let one site have more than 12 display slots before displaying other sites intermixed, so one site could not hog the search results.
posted on March 8, 2001 10:54:10 AM
Who do the listings belong to ? Again eBay is just a venue when it suits them, but a content owner when it suits them.
posted on March 8, 2001 11:51:16 AM
No matter how cynical I get I just can't seem to keep up. Si I've developed a conspiracy theory:
1. eBay raises fees - not surprised, everything went up over the last year.
2. AW announces fees - no surprise here. I've been reading about it for a few months.
2a. AW announces FVF - big surprise, where the _ell did that come from?
3. eBay may raise fees again - ?rumor?
Therefore - why doesn't eBay just buy AW outright. eBay gets a better way to bulk list, better message board, nice templates, better storefront and a fee increase by adding the new AW fee and FVF to their terms. No difference to the folks that stay with AW. eBay now $.35 plus 6% and they don't have to maintain a listing function. AW walks away happy and keeps all their staff. Meg lays off a few folks.
posted on March 8, 2001 01:13:31 PM
If eBay was considering hooking up with AW, they wouldn't have partnered with Honesty, Andale, and Eppraisals and ipix, which all provide competing services.
posted on March 8, 2001 01:23:24 PM
rubylane; You are exactly right. At the time, eBay seemed to be under seize from every other dot com that popped up. Speculation was that the day was comming where it didn't matter which site sellers listed on because most buyers would be using the universal searches. Shortly before or after the AW dispute, eBay was making a big issue out of sellers using their eBay feedback on other sites. Now its become common for sellers to do this and I havn't heard a peep from eBay.
