Google Vs. Ebay

Just in case you haven't been following the Google/eBay tussle, here is a little background. eBay pulled all of their ads off Google when they tried to hold a private party competing with eBay's annual celebration. Dirty pool for sure and when the cry of foul was heard they cancelled the party. Most think it was due to the ad pulling frenzy that preceded. Most of the bad blood started when eBay disallowed the use of Google Checkout in favor of PayPal; which by the way eBay owns.

eBay execs are now insisting that the their pulling of the ads was a planned event to experiment and evaluate traffic without the help of Google. YEAH RIGHT. They kept their ads on Ask, MSN and Yahoo. This was an obvious retaliatory action in an attempt to give the sultan of search a bloody nose (something few companies are capable of).

Based on their "experiment", eBay says that a disproportionate amount of traffic in relation to spending was discovered and they plan on a "significant" scale back of spending in the US.