Google Cancels eBay Live Party, Yahoo in the Mix?

Google cancelled a party meant to attract attendees of eBay's annual conference and designed in part to protest eBay's ban of Google Checkout. eBay had expressed its displeasure over Google's decision to host the party to an IDG reporter on Wednesday and pulled its US advertising on Google. Later in the day, Google sent an email to party registrants informing them it had cancelled the event, but gave no reason.

eBay was not the only one who may have been displeased by news of the Google party. An organization of eBay's top sellers had planned a party with Yahoo for the same date and time as Google's to celebrate its agreement with the company over the Yahoo PayPal Checkout program, which competes with Google Checkout and was launched in April (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m04/i18/s01). eBay owns the PayPal payment service and runs Yahoo advertisements on the eBay site.

Yahoo exhibited at last year's eBay Live conference and exhibited at eBay's Developer conference earlier this week. (Google was not at either event, and told a reporter eBay had banned it from exhibiting at this year's eBay Live conference.)

Some industry players attending an eBay Live pre-conference meet-and-greet party thought it all came down to money, guessing eBay's decision to pull its advertising from Google's US properties had hurt the search-engine giant's pocketbook. But some wondered which company would be hurt more in the long run by an eBay boycott of Google advertising - Google from a drop-off in revenues or eBay from a drop-off in traffic; in April, eBay announced it would no longer compensate affiliates for paid search traffic purchased from Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, meaning there would be virtually no ads driving traffic to eBay from Google.

The Yahoo ads now appearing on eBay is a sore topic among eBay sellers. AuctionBytes has speculated that eBay may make an announcement this week about eBay Express ads possibly appearing on Yahoo's ad network. eBay is holding its annual shareholders meeting today (June 14), and CEO Meg Whitman is scheduled to give the keynote address at eBay Live at 6 pm today.

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From the Official Google Checkout Blog, 6/13/07
Update to our event on 6/14 Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Posted by Tom Oliveri, Google Checkout Team
eBay Live attendees have plenty of activities to keep them busy this week in Boston, and we did not want to detract from that activity. After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference. Google is constantly reaching out to new users and sellers, and we are available to privately discuss any matters of concern with individuals as they relate to Google products. Interested parties may contact us at checkout-reply@google.com.
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AuctionBytes is reporting live from Boston's Convention Center this week from the floor of the eBay Live conference and will be covering eBay's annual shareholders meeting on June 14.