Well, it seems that eBay has thrown its toys out of the pram good and proper and boy are they big toys.

In a recent fall out with Google, eBay has halted its entire spending budget for Google AdWords which is worth around $25 million (£12.6 m) a year. This make s eBay one of Google’s largest spenders when it comes to AdWords.

But why has eBay made such a move?

eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said, “This is part of an ongoing experiment to look at how we market across all media channels,”.

But he admitted the company were disappointed over Google’s plans to host a rival function in an attempt to build market share for its Google Checkout payments service, which was launched in the US last year and became available in the UK in April.

“We don’t view that kind of activity as an appropriate activity for one partner to do to another,” he said.

It seems Google had planned to bring to the attention of PayPal users, who would have been attending the eBay Live annual seller event in Boston, of its own new service, “Google Checkout”.

And what better way to tell your target market about your new service than to hold a launch party in the same town, on the same night, as eBay was holding its Live annual seller event. You can see the clever thinking on Google’s part can’t you. (obviously eBay didn’t like this though).

At the moment, the Google Checkout service is banned from being used as a payment option on eBay.

So why would eBay throw such a mood over this?

Well, eBay wants to protect its PayPal service which is responsible for around 66% of companys annual income. With Google moving in on its turf, eBay see Google as a rival and potentially they could take away a portion of its revenue.

So, in response to this, to hit back at Google, eBay halted all of its spending on Google AdWords which had a knock on effect to its affiliates….

You see, when eBay said it wouldn’t spend another penny with AdWords, it really meant it which is why eBay announced to its affiliates on June 16th, they would no longer be allowed to send any PPC click traffic directly to an eBay URL via their affiliate link.

Wow, I guess eBay really have thrown the toys out the pram and stamped their feet at the same time.

But all is fair in love and war which means it will only be a matter of time before something is sorted out. After all, can Google really stand to lose $25 million a year in revenue at the drop of a hat?

Money talks and when you’re talking $25 million, people will listen.

Watch this space…..

Michael Sherriff
http://auctionaffiliatesecrets.com/2007/
The Hidden Goldmine of eBay’s
Affiliate Program Revealed

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