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EBay in talks with News Corp. on possible tie-up
2007-02-12 05:48:01
EBay in talks with News Corp. on possible tie-up Online auctioneer eBay Inc. is in talks to supply electronic payments and auction features to the popular MySpace social network and other New Corp.’s online properties, according to people familiar with the situation. The negotiations have been ongoing for months, a source said, but no deals have yet been reached. The potential tie-up of two Internet behemoths is further affirmation that News Corp . is trying to turn MySpace into a bigger money-making venture. The company expects the MySpace social networking site to be “marginally profitable” during fiscal 2007, with profit rising “dramatically” in fiscal 2008, News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin said Wednesday, after the company reported its latest quarterly earnings. The site generated about $75 million in revenue during the second fiscal quarter, up 70% compared with the prior year, he added. Chernin also said MySpace is on a pace ...
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Window linked to JFK assassination on eBay
2007-02-12 05:48:01
Window linked to JFK assassination on eBay Owner says item was part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper perch A window owned by a man who says it was part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper perch in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is up for auction on eBay. Caruth Byrd, whose father owned the Texas School Book Depository building in 1963, has set a starting price of $100,000 for what he describes as “perhaps the most famous window ever offered up for sale in the world.” Byrd’s father had the window removed several weeks after the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination because visitors were stealing pieces of it, Byrd said. The window was on display at the elder Byrd’s home until his death in 1986. The younger Byrd lent the window to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas for 12 years before recently reclaiming it. Source: Msnbc.com related/ bookmark it/ readit
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Tax advice for eBay-style sellers
2007-02-12 05:48:01
Tax advice for eBay-style sellers Individuals who buy and sell items over the internet may in future find it harder to claim they didn?t realise their trade was taxable, in light of new guidelines from HM Revenue & Customs. Aimed squarely at people who sell items through websites such as eBay, the fresh advice has been issued to demystify the fog between non-taxable loft clearers and taxable e-traders. Freelance UK has heard from tax advisors that the onus is always on the individual to prove they are not operating a trade, as opposed to the Revenue proving they have been trading. According to the new guidelines, available on HMRC?s website, people are now liable for tax if they use the likes of Yahoo! and eBay to provide goods to customers and they pay in return. The taxman says you are trading, and therefore liable for tax, if: * you sell goods that you bought for resale * you make items yourself and sell them, intending to make a profit * you sell or buy goods for oth...
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Mozilla in tie-up with eBay
2007-02-12 05:48:01
Mozilla in tie-up with eBay The software group has come to an agreement with eBay which it hopes will take market share from Microsoft Mozilla, the non-profit software group, has agreed a tie-up with eBay as part of its continuing drive to take market share from Microsoft. The move, which will be announced early this year, is part of an increasingly commercial push by Mozilla, already one of the biggest thorns in Microsoft’s side, to build the user base of its Firefox web browser by luring users from Microsoft?s Internet Explorer. The partnership with the world?s largest online auction house will take a similar form to a deal announced yesterday between Mozilla and Kodak. The eBay agreement is based around a similar ?widget? that will allow Firefox users to manage auctions from the browser. Commercial details of the two partnerships are not known. By stepping up its co-operation with commercial partners, Mozilla hopes to expose Firefox to a larger market. EBay has ab...
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eBay bans sale of in-game goods
2007-02-03 11:44:03
eBay bans sale of in-game goods eBay has moved to ban the sale of in-game items from its US and UK sites. The practice - dubbed ‘gold farming’ - occurs when gamers trade their hard-earned virtual resources for more tangible currency. The ban includes the sale of game accounts, game characters, game currency, game points or any other similar game items. ‘eBay is committed to making the site a safe place to trade,’ said an eBay spokesperson. ‘Due to the legal complexity associated with these types of items, we believe that it is in the best interests of the marketplace to disallow the sale of virtual items at this time.’ The ‘legal complexity’ arises because the terms of service for online games often outlaw such sales. Sony, for example, has clamped down on sales in the past, only in order to set up its own exchange system for its EverQuest II game. Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft (pictured) has become the most pop...
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eBay?s local membership hits 5 million
2007-02-02 17:43:12
eBay’s local membership hits 5 million One in three Australian adults now use internet auction house eBay to do their shopping, as online spending continues to grow as the preferred method of purchase. The website said it had signed its five millionth Australian member, which was up two-thirds from the three million users it recorded in August 2005. eBay Australasian managing director Simon Smith said most Australians initially used the site to purchase a product but later found it a useful way to get cash for unwanted items. “We find more and more people who have bought things on eBay wake up to the value of the items they have lying around the house,” Mr Smith said. “The average Australian has, I think, $1,700 worth of unwanted items that they could sell just lying around their home. “We’re essentially no more than a way of allowing our community to buy and sell practically anything and have a fun experience while they do it.” Rece...
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PayPal acts to stamp out phishing attacks
2007-02-02 05:42:03
PayPal acts to stamp out phishing attacks Online payment site will fight fraud with two-factor system PayPal?s decision to introduce an optional two-factor authentication system highlights the increasing concern of banks and online payment organisations over phishing. The amount of money lost to online banking fraud in the UK increased 55 per cent to £22.5m in the first half of 2006, according to figures from banking industry body Apacs ? and all the signs indicate this amount will continue to rise. Most phishing emails now target PayPal and eBay customers, largely because they are such a huge demographic ? 123 million customers at the end of 2006 ? but also because PayPal is designed to make it easy to move money around, predisposing it to being phished. Surprisingly, however, phishing is not a large financial problem for PayPal or its customers. Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at PayPal, says the problem with phishing has more to do with perception than r...
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Who?s Your Buddy? PayPal
2007-01-31 11:39:02
Who’s Your Buddy ? PayPal With all the buzz about Google Checkout, PayPal is still the king of payment processing, especially for small online merchants who rely on its full array of tools and services to boost sales. For Web store owners without expertise in online selling or those who have less sophisticated sites, PayPal can fill the gaps and put them in a position to compete with larger retailers. “The greatest thing about PayPal is the way it processes credit card transactions,” according to Barak Haimoff, whose company UtopiaDiamonds.com got its start on eBay. Haimoff said that he can take credit card payments over the phone, through e-mail or through his site. He also particularly appreciates the fact that PayPal charges the same transaction fee regardless of what kind of credit card his customer uses. “That’s unheard of in the industry,” he said. But if you still think of PayPal as a simple service for handling cash, you’re missi...
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eBay bans auctions of virtual goods
2007-01-30 17:38:05
eBay bans auctions of virtual goods By proactively delisting auctions for property from virtual worlds and online games, eBay may be effectively forcing players who participate in such trades into the hands of giant third-party operations that buy and sell virtual goods. Given that a significant slice of the multi-hundred-million-dollar business took place on eBay until now, the move portends a significant shift in who controls the market for virtual goods. eBay confirmed its decision to ban auctions for the characters, currency, weapons, attire and accounts of online games such as World of Warcraft, City of Heroes and others. The move was first reported on Slashdot. The ban does not affect the virtual world Second Life. In most cases, publishers of online games include in their terms of service a prohibition on so-called real-money trades (RMTs), in which people buy and sell online games’ virtual assets for real money. Players who violate such rules can be banned. But be...
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eBay-PayPal Still Rules
2007-01-30 05:37:02
eBay-PayPal Stil l Rules eBay surprised Wall Street yesterday as Internetnews.com reported : “The online auction giant posted a profit of $346 million, up by 24 percent from its year-ago quarterly profit of $279 million. Revenues jumped by 29 percent to $1.7 billion compared to the same, year-ago quarter of $1.3 billion. Shares were up by 12 percent to $33.70 in after-hours trading following the results. For the full year, eBay raked in $6 billion in sales, a growth of 31 percent compared to 2005 when it took in $4.6 billion.” In other e-commerce news, the battle between Google Base-Checkout and eBay-PayPal is heating up. Site traffic analyst company Hitwise USA is predicting that in the future the combination of Google Base and Google Checkout will be stiff competition for the PayPal-eBay market. PayPal Trumps Checkout According to a recent JP Morgan survey, however, Checkout has a long way to go in catching up to PayPal. Only 19 percent rated Google’s Checkout ...
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Who Owns Your eBay Data
2007-01-29 05:36:03
Who Owns Your eBay Data An eBay seller?s reputation score is calculated from how other eBay users rate the seller. Does that score belong to the seller, the eBay users who contributed to it, or eBay? Pretty easy actually, when you consider the principles of reputation. :- -> The eBay score is eBay?s story about the user. They calculate that story and it?s pretty simple but still they?re the ones deciding the algorithm that?s used. ->The eBay users and eBay jointly own the ratings. That is, each user should have the right to use in any way they want all of the ratings they?ve contributed. Of course, so does eBay. ->The seller jointly owns, with the buyer data about the transactions that he or she had with each buyer. Both parties should be able to use that data in any way they see fit. ->In the interest of transparency, the eBay seller ought to also have the ability to inspect, but not change any rating about them. Now, what should be and what is are two different things. Ri...
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EBay beats expectations as 4Q profit increases 24 percent; stocks jump in a
2007-01-25 11:32:03
EBay beats expectations as 4Q profit increases 24 percent; stocks jump in after market EBay Inc. reported that fourth-quarter profit increased 24 percent from the same period last year, trouncing Wall Street estimates and prompting executives to raise guidance for the current quarter. Thanks to scorching holiday sales _ particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany _ the San Jose, California-based online auction company earned $349 million (euro268.4 million), or 25 cents per share, for the three months ended Dec. 31, EBay reported Wednesday. It earned $279 million (euro214.5 million), or 20 cents per share in the year-ago period. EBay shares increased $1.38, or nearly 5 percent, to close Wednesday at $30 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. After the earnings report was released, shares jumped another $3.80, or nearly 13 percent, in after-market trading. “It was a very strong quarter capping a very strong year,'’ eBay President and Chief...
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PayPal Policy Update
2007-01-24 17:30:05
PayPal Poli cy Update PayPal, eBay’s online payment service announced several policy changes, with most falling in favor of sellers and buyers with a few exceptions, notably the revoking of its “Money Back Guarantee” program. The “Money Back” plan allowed subscribers to resell merchandise to PayPal if they were unsatisfied with the item, with the guarantee covering transactions for less than $1,000. The company is removing the limit on the number of payouts PayPal awards to a buyer per year under the terms of the protection programs. The company’s buyer protection program helps shoppers get their money back from eBay sellers who fail to deliver or who grossly misrepresent their merchandise. For those who deal with overseas transactions, PayPal announced that it is updating its Buyer Complaint Process for claims made under eBay’s Standard Purchase Protection Program for payments made in Euros. The maximum payment will now be 230 Euros, up f...
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eBay Bans Auction Extenders to Improve Buyer Experience
2007-01-24 05:30:11
eBay Bans Auction Extenders to Improve Buyer Experience eBay appears to be putting its money where its mouth is. At a gathering of top sellers last week, eBay emphasized the importance of improving the buyer experience, and it confirmed this week it is banning auction extender tools on its site. eBay changed its “Circumventing Fees” policy to prohibit the extension of auction durations, both manually and through the use of automatic tools. The new language is found in a section called “Extension of Auctions” that explains, “Extension of auctions by a seller for any reason is not only a form of fee avoidance, but also harms the finding experience for buyers.” The issue of extending auctions came up in a major brouhaha in the summer of 2005, when it was revealed that a developer called Ethical Technologies had been marketing a tool to members of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) that automatically revised listings for sellers. At the...
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Florida Boy Uses eBay to Fundraise With His Head
2007-01-22 11:27:04
Florida Boy Uses eBay to Fun draise With His Head If being diagnosed with leukemia wasn’t bad enough, Patrick Pedraja’s hair started falling out from the chemotherapy treatments. But his newly expansive forehead gave him a bright idea. If he could get companies to pay to advertise on his noggin, he could use the money for a good cause, like going around the country to recruit bone marrow donors to help others with leukemia. So Pat and his mom, Claudine Andrews, who live in Palm Harbor near Tampa, went to the world’s pop culture marketplace - eBay - and opened an online auction. For a minimum bid of $5,000, Pat offered to wear a temporary tattoo on his forehead for a month touting the winning bidder’s goods or services. After a false start - eBay pulled one of his first auctions because of a technicality - San Diego-based satellite phone provider All Road Communications bid $5,100 for the rights to stencil its Web address on his melon. Meanwhile, he’s ...
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How about OLPC laptops for Aborigines on eBay? The One Lap
2007-01-14 05:24:04
How about OLPC laptops for Aborigines on eBay? The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project targets five million impoverished children in the developing world, but work is already underway to trial them among indigenous populations in Australia, and the BBC reports a deal is in the works with eBay for worldwide sales of the simple laptop. Currently being produced for about 150 U.S. dollars each, the durable, easy-to-use XO laptop is the brainchild of MIT Media Lab and Nicholas Negroponte, who billed it revolutionary for children’s education. Allowing poor children access to modern technologies, MIT argued, would give those who don’t have access to teachers and schools the ability teach themselves. “Poor children lack opportunity, not capacity for learning,” reads a description on the OLPC website. “By providing laptops to every child without cost to the child, we bring the poor child the same opportunities for learning that wealthy families b...
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PayPal to offer password key fobs to users
2007-01-12 11:21:02
PayPal to offer password key fobs to users eBay is getting ready to offer its PayPal users a password-generating key fob that promises to increase the security of the online payment service. The device displays a new one-time password in the form of a six-digit code about every 30 seconds. PayPal clients who opt to use the device will enter this password along with their regular credentials when signing into the service. The key fob is meant as another weapon in the battle on data-thieving phishing scams. “If a fraudulent party somehow got hold of a person’s username and password, they still wouldn’t be able to get into the account because they don’t have the six-digit code,” Sara Bettencourt, a PayPal spokeswoman, said by phone Thursday. “This by no means is a silver bullet that is going to stop fraud. This is just another layer of protection.” The “PayPal Security Key” will cost $5 for personal PayPal accounts, but will...
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EBay Buying StubHub for $310M in Cash
2007-01-11 23:20:04
EBay Buying StubHub for $310M in Cash EBay Inc. is buying rapidly growing online ticket broker StubHub Inc. for $310 million in cash, further expanding the Internet auctioneer’s electronic bazaar. The San Jose-based company announced the deal late Wednesday after the news had already been leaked to the media. StubHub’s sale, expected to close before April, punctuates another improbable Internet success story. Jeff Fluhr, StubHub’s 32-year-old co-founder and chief executive, launched the San Francisco startup against the dreary backdrop of the dot-com bust 6 1/2 years ago with another former student at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Eric Baker. “StubHub’s business model is an excellent fit with eBay, a company we’ve admired for a long time,” Fluhr said in a statement. “StubHub exists to serve passionate fans and we feel great knowing our customers will benefit from the power of eBay and its community of users.” EBay...
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