Google backs down in eBay confrontation

by Andrew McCormick, Media Week 15-Jun-07, 12:00

LONDON - Google has backed away from confrontation with online auction site eBay by cancelling a rival event.

Google came under fire earlier this week for allegedly "hi-jacking" an eBay conference in the US. The search giant put out an invitation to a Google Checkout party, to all delegates attending the Boston event eBay Live. Google Checkout is a direct rival to eBay's online payment system Paypal.

eBay, the biggest advertiser on Google, according to research firm Nielsen, then temporarily withdrew all advertising from Google, although a spokesman for the auction site said that the move was simply part of eBay's experimentation with its marketing budget.

Now Google has cancelled its Google Checkout party. The explanation on Google Checkout's blog said: "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."

In an earlier post on its blog Google invited eBay Live delegates to a party celebrating "user choice", called the Google Checkout Freedom Party.