Agency Spy

Remember when Google and Ebay were all mad at each other? In 2003, Ebay banned Google keywords from the site and in 2006 banned sellers from using Google Checkout. To top it off, ten days ago the auction megasite pulled its ads from Google all together. eBay is one of the biggest buyers of keyword ads on Google’s AdWords. eBay denies that it was because Google was “planning to promote a competing online payment service (Ebay owns PayPal) across the street from an annual gathering of eBay users in Boston” last week. Yeah. Right. Tsk… Tsk… It didn’t look pretty, but apparently the break-up was short lived. eBay has resumed advertising on the Google, but in a limited way. Payback is a bitch, no?

In the mean time, eBay doesn’t seem to give two figs about Google, as they’ve got tons of other things to worry about like attempting to crack the nut that is China again . Or, readying the launch of their auction site for advertising airtime on 2,300 U.S. radio stations. This would expand on their existing plan to sell cable television ads, which hasn’t gone too well. You see:

“-the Cable Television Advertising Bureau, an industry trade group that represents large, ad-supported cable channels, withdrew from trials of the eBay Media Marketplace in April, complaining the system was unworkable.”

If these new systems get off the ground it will definitely make buying airtime more like a sport than work. Let the bidding begin.