Let me be he first to say, how much i hate ebay and paypal. I have since moved on to amazon and craigslist. It’s such a joke that no one has yet to knock ebay of their high horse.

Google is always willing to fight the good fight….when it benefits them. If the shoe is on the other foot they have no problem doing the things they accuse eBay of.

andrew, true. but someday soon, someone may be pointing the finger and accusing monopoly right back at em.

I’d like to feel warm and fuzzy that Google’s done this, but the nasty cold voice in my head says they’re doing it for their own hides. Regardless, I appreciate the effort.

I’ll be out of Ebay.com.au come July 17. I don’t do Paypal, the service is simply bad, not to mention Ebay will now be able to double dip on fees. And then there’s the delay in payment, processing etc via Paypal.

Yer dead to me Ebay. Dead to me!

Paypal fixed their menus? How nice!

What ever happened to that free payments startup you guys covered a few months ago? Noca or something?

1. Michael, has anyone else commented on the alternating between Scribd and DocStoc. I applaud the fairness.

2. Is it also not ironic that they had to use a MSFT word doc to submit this proposal? Yah, desktop apps are dead. Right.

I have been using paypal for almost 2 years now and I pretty bored of that lazy company. there is a space for an alternative, it would be great if some other company comes up with a better alternative.

Do no evil, indeed.

What is wrong with having Google Checkout in Ebay? I use both, they are equally good and Google Checkout have lower fees than Paypal ( Google Checkout is free for Charities). IT should be the customers that decide what payment to choose. Why should I pay too much fees and all the fees, listing, closing and payment fees to Ebay. While journalists won’t criticize Ebay, Google is criticizing here.

I guess Google Docs cannot compare to Office 2007. and if he wanted to remove the meta data he should have used foxit pdf creator.

It’s spelled eBay, not Ebay. You got it right some of the time.

I don’t think there is anything wrong for a company to fight for its own benefit,
and I definitely want to see more competitive players in paypal’s market, but GOOG really need better PR if they want to keep fooling around with that “do no evil” mask, cause people started to figure out the fact that it’s just some BS.

What are these guys down under smoking? Take credit cards for example. Yes, this space is dominated by few players but at least there is some competition. Limiting non-cash payments to the product from one specific company _is_ the ultimate evil.

Ah, my favorite trick - look at the Meta Data. I do that all the time; it’s amazing the stuff you find. (Kids, check your Resume’s meta-data!) I have discarded job candidates, and gotten competitive information from meta data.

Just a couple of comments:

- Has Google ‘fessed up? Or could this really just be Microsoft (or someone) planting some data in a file (which is very easy!). I don’t think you can definitively say this is Google, simply because someone had some text in the meta data.

- Everyone quotes the “do no evil” slogan. But it’s really “Don’t Be Evil”. See http://investor.google.com/conduct.html . Not a huge difference; presumably non-evil entities won’t DO evil things. But in the interest of making TC readers smarter, I thought I’d pass that nugget along.

Why google is messing around with this stuff is beyond comprehension. 1st it is litigate rather than innovate which is pathetic. (As it was when the threw the same sort of stuff at MS - maybe they are scared of them because even they still use their products?) 2 - They are going to have to deal with this stuff themselves very soon. If this nonsense works I hope they come to regret whatever precedent they set when someone springs it on them.

>but the nasty cold voice in my head says they’re doing it for their own hides

Yeah - that’s not the cold and nasty voice it is the logical one.

>and if he wanted to remove the meta data he should have used foxit pdf creator.

Actually you tell word to can the metadata too.

Being in the middle of reading iWoz in which Woz reveals his many pranks including ones that attribute the blame to a 3rd party, I have to say that you all seem to be jumping the gun on this one. This looks like classic disingenuousness. Wozniak did it (regardless, likely as not GOOG didn’t!).

It would be far too easy to put false info in the metadata. Anyone could be the true source of that write-up.
And if it was GOOG, using Google Docs might make it easier to point the finger at them.
These days, it seems like corps are behaving more and more like children.

204481916_1_ACCC Submission by Google re eBay Public _2_.DOC

What will happen to those Google Authors and Editors?

Will they be reprimanded? Perhaps they were ordered to alter the documents title but were not reminded of the metadata by the legal or forensics team (who should be checking all documents being released)

What if this is in fact a hoax by someone wishing to start a controversy?

If Ebay does in fact pull their PPCs off Google? Will Google retaliate by changing their algos causing Ebay pages to drop in the organic SERPs.

Despite how mad Ebay may get off of this, they end up hurting themselves by pulling Ads. Those millions of PPC ads must provide an ROI or else they would not be using them. So they are in a sense, losing potential income as well.

If you don’t want to get caught emailing files with metadata, there’s an app called SendShield that finds and strips out all that stuff. It’s an Outlook plug-in, so it’s not for everyone (e.g. webmail, mac users,…).

@Andrew keep in mind they are a business and are responsible for increases shareholder value. A monopoly is not out of the picture.

Ryan
lessons in brevity: http://www.mofata.com

I have no problem with a company criticising another company in submissions to regulators etc. What I do have a problem with is making it anonymous. Knowing who the author of the document is provides context for the reader in assessing the credibility of claims made.

If this truly is Google’s work, then they should own up to it and people should take whatever is contained within with a big dose of salt (given Google has an obvious conflict of interest here).

I’m confused… if I was at work at Google writing a doc to send to someone (anyone, regardless of whether I want it anonymous or not) would I put “by Google” anywhere in the doc, it’s metadata or title?

I know at my last job I didn’t routinely write docs with titles along the lines of “Asset Toolchain for Background Elements by Electronic Arts”. And even if that metadata is generated by concatenating several values (such as filename + MS Word’s author-field grabbed from the OS) it’s odd that the Author field would be “Google” and not “TGilbert” or “Troy Gilbert”…

I smell hoax, or a competitor masking as a different competitor.

http://digg.com/microsoft/MSFT.....n_Document

I’ve seen this before somewhere.

Is there a difference between Google and Microsoft anymore?
Half of MS works at Google now anyway.

Ebay has plenty of issues, among them are it’s overwhelming size and effect on the tech world.

No comment on this subject except that I hope paypal fails miserabably.

I just want to reach someone on this site because you guys don’t reply to email or anything.

Your forum registration isn’t working, it isn’t sending out the confirmation email to a gmail account. It is not in spam. Can someone check this out?

If it was Microsoft rather than Google this post would be on how Microsoft is trying to help consumers even in markets it does not compete in.

nothing wrong for Google to PUBLICLY contest eBay’s move — which is pretty obviously monopolistic imho, and i used to work there — however for some Googler to attempt to mask such a response as anonymous is just so plainly deflowering the image of Google as “not evil”. they may not be evil, but neither are they “good”, they’re simply neutral & self-interested.

more & more this is becoming SOP for the Goog…. talking out of one side of their mouths about user benefit & standards & making the world’s information accessible, and yet out of the other side trenchcoat behavior & moves in the dark.

i’m really getting tired of everyone thinking Google is such goodness & light. yes, there are lots of bright folks over there with the best of intentions, however as with Microsoft in the 90’s, the many wonderful individuals within are shadowed by the overall culture of the organization, which continues to be exemplified by opacity, stonewalling, & secrecy.

these are hardly the shining principles we would expect in a corporation that prides itself on “not being evil”. they are no more or less so than Microsoft, eBay, Yahoo, or any other market actor. they ARE brilliant, and certainly do great things from time to time, but to paint the organization as “morally correct” is easily disproven by these types of actions.

generally speaking: corporations act in their own interests, based on market forces. if & when they act in the interests of others, it’s nice… but certainly not to be expected as default behavior. the many innovations of Google aside, they don’t appear to be any different.

I was so disappointed last year when Google backed down after eBay pulled their advertising. Like Google really needed the money, and like eBay’s ads are really that useful to anyone. You search for any random thing and there’s always a “buy _searchterm_ on ebay!” that makes no sense, it’s really annoying.

I HATE EBAY & PAYPAL WITH A CAPS LOCK ON!! SHOUT !! I still have 6k frozen with paypal, waiting for my limited account to be released (which will never happen)

Google I bless you with all my heart to compete against Ebay!
Google Auctions!!!!!! Yeah baby ! Yeah!

@6: To the best of my knowledge Noca raised their angel round recently so they’re in development mode. I also don’t think they do credit cards, just straight bank account transfers using ACH.

I personally think it would be a bad idea for them to enter this space and I voiced that to the founders. They agreed with me that they’re better off focusing on emerging micropayment markets than e-commerce.

Is there any way we can stop the news coming in from Australia? What a worthless place. Im surprised this meaningless news didnt come from Duncan.

This is not meaningless news just because it comes from Australia. Just means Australia is being used as a test market to follow suit with rest of world.

its kind of monopoly but it will not work

@30, that doesn’t normal. I never had a problem with paypal, and I have been using it for years. You should probably call them up.

DISCLAIMER: I am an ebay power seller.

@eve, that misquote always bugs me too. Maybe time to update to: “Don’t get caught being evil.”

thats rediculous. i hate ebay and paypal

I hate monopolys…

I don´t care, this “David Bromage” could have been paid by Ebay. Speculations lead to nowhere.

“an anonymous 38 page document that is highly critical of Ebay’s move was submitted on May 26″
Wow, what a disingenuous way of presenting it: like many of the readers so far judging by their comments, i thought at first that the document was submitted anonymously by sneaky Google. It turns out that it is the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission who withheld the name of the submitter!
That’s a bit low Michael…

Even if you dislike PayPal, if the information in the metadata is true, how can you condone a large company like Google mounting its attack anonymously? If they have good arguments,, they should step up and make them!

Funny how everyone just believe what they read. Did anyone consider the possibility that someone is trying to frame Google? The metadata is not a PROOF that Google has something to do with it. One can whatever they want in the doc. It easily could have Visa CEO’s name in there.

Larry P

I love paypal, have been using for personal payments for over 5 years. this is a killer app. several of my friends use it for their SMB online merchant shops. they never had a problem. Couple of them tried Google Checout too, I believe they liked it too (it is not truly cross border though).

my question is:

1) ebay cannot force au users to accept PayPal, they can make it a primary option. this is bad, unless they can substantiate with lots of evidence. Competition is good.

2) Google is “all evil”. I have been noticing they are worse than microsoft. MSoft agrees they are evil and do evil. Google is slimy. they say “no evil” and “do evil”. this is a dangerous company can stoop to any levels. They talked ill about yahoo a lot (esp during the China govt supporting incidence). now they want to partner with yahoo to keep msft at bay. i am hoping for a killer app on SEARCH, and make Google a toast. We need real competition for google in search.

PayPal’s whole business model is to leech off the buyer/seller relationship, it’s quite sad really. I hope one day they focus on offering some real value for their customers.

I have been a member of PayPal for 8 years now and I have 4 different PayPal accounts for my many businesses. I am not sure what I would have done not been for PayPal’s service in allowing me to accept credit cards on my websites and via email invoicing. I just recently did a download of all my payment transactions and I was shocked at how much money I have earned through PayPal and it brought a big smile to my face.

I also have a Google Checkout account but was very put off by their payout of the funds put into your Google Checkout account so I have rarely used them.

http://emailtoecommerce.blogsp.....-lock.html

The only other payment service that I have tried but have still not been impressed as I am with PayPal was Revolution Money Exchange. They are trying really hard to be the next threat to PayPal and Google Checkout but have not done that much to draw my business away from PayPal.

I know I sound like a PayPal Evangelist but when it comes to small businesses needing a way to expand their business by accepting credit cards PayPal wins hand down.

http://2thenextlevel.com/blog/.....opreneurs/

I used to sell old items on eBay, I hate the multiple fees they charged to sellers, It’s cheaper to take all the old or unwanted items to the tips. Selling on should make money not losing money. As a buyer, I like the eBay Australia, they accept different form of payment, my favours is the direct deposit.

@19 - I agree about the hoax. It’s a controllable filename, and I don’t use my company name in files I save. Also - Google LOVES to hide things for people to find on purpose. They get delight in having their thorough users find what they engineers have carefully easter egg’d. I seriously doubt they’d do a flub like that.

Smells like sensationalism with vindictiveness.

I hate Paypal. It’s difficult to use, slow, the delivery address funtionality is primitive, it’s expensive - but most of all, it’s quite obvious that the company doesn’t respond to user requirements. As merchants we switched to Google Checkout and love it. The amount of problems we had with Paypal over Christmas of 2007 was awful, mainly down to non-responsive email support staff and delivery address problems.
Come on Google! You need to improve ‘Checkout’ too - but it’s already tons better that PayPal

on one hand it will help fight fraud as Paypal will have direct access to buyers/sellers information and could block some fraudulent users… but it is truly going one step too far and turning into a monopoly!
When is Google planning on opening checkout worldwide to offer a “true” competitive solution?

PayPal sucks. eBay is fine but is not only a company that deals with online transactions but they are also like a bank that likes to hold peoples money in order to grow interest. There are many things wrong with PayPal and an alternative is needed.