This article on PC World website concerns eBay's policy of using contextual advertising, i.e. external ads on eBay pages with products competing with eBay's sellers'. The policy is criticized by eBay sellers as it could be luring potential buyers away.
An obvious "advertising revenue vs. customers (eBay sellers)' interest" situation.
This reminds the story of Livejournal few months ago, when they announced their "special expression of thank" to all dear paid users (who pays Livejournal 20USD per year for a blog FREE OF ADVERTISEMENT). Guess what? It was an image of a PEPSI COKE which paid users could "use as wished". Most users chose to forward the image straight to Livejournal's profile page as a way of 'virtually throwing a can of coke to Livejournal's head'.
It's unknown how much Livejournal received from Pepsi back then, but clearly a bad move for both.
Mai
2A7208
1 comment:
Thanks Mai for this input. I agree with you. Ebay has gone overboard ( especially in regard to the deals with yahoo and Google. It basically started out as a virtual place where buyers and sellers would meet away from the 'prying eye' of profis seeking companies. There has been a fundamental shift from the original e-bay. So, brace your selves for the next virtual market going to replace e-bay.
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