Google Accidently Revealed As eBay Critic

Xiroth writes "In what could cause an escalation of tensions between the two internet giants, an anonymous critique of eBay's upcoming move to accepting only PayPal as the payment method in Australia has accidently been revealed to have been submitted by Google thanks to PDF meta-tags."

Re:Good.

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

Exactly, I don't see what the problem is. Google is the bad guy after calling out eBay for blatantly abusing their monopoly power? Who cares if they were trying to do so "anonymously"? Doesn't change the facts.

PayPal requires caution

[sjbe]

And in any case, what's the big deal with using Paypal? Sure, I've heard the horror stories, but fortunately nothing like that has ever happened to me as a seller, so there ya go.

Give it time and you'll experience some of the horrors first hand. The main problems with PayPal from the standpoint a seller is that their policies make it pretty easy for buyers to abuse you and PayPal is rather expensive as well. I've sold over 10,000 items on eBay and received most payments via PayPal. 99% of the time it works well even if it is overly pricey for the service provided - but PayPal's policies are heavily tilted towards favoring buyers and you should NEVER forget that.

Eventually you'll run into someone who decides they don't like something and the magic words with PayPal are "not as described" - it doesn't matter how accurately you actually did describe it since PayPal does not check or even care. Anyone can return anything, regardless of your policy on returns and get a full refund - screwing you out of the shipping price in the process. (accepting returns is usually a good policy but not in all cases) Worse, sometimes the "buyer" will ship you a box with nothing in it (keeping the item) and PayPal will give them their money back as soon as they provide "proof" of shipping. As for PayPal's seller's "protection", it's nearly worthless and PayPal puts so many stipulations in that they can basically weasel out anytime they want to. (and believe me they do)

PayPal wants to be a bank without being regulated like one. They also implement a lot of poorly thought out policies that could only be fair if they could/would inspect the merchandise - but they don't and never will. I don't have a problem with their service overall but it should be used with a strong dose of caveat emptor.

Direct link to the PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

The 38-page PDF [accc.gov.au]

(via Ars Technica - "Google tries anonymously fighting eBay's PayPal-only policy" [arstechnica.com])

Re:Good.

[Mistshadow2k4]

I don't know about unethical, but it definitely is anti-competitive. eBay does have a monopoly in the online auction business. That there are other online auction businesses is little different than MS saying they're not a monopoly because of Apple. So, that the move is anti-competitive would have a good chance of standing up in court. If eBay thinks they're so powerful that this needn't concern them, I'd say that's pretty arrogant; Google may be the search giant rather than the online-pay giant, but they're still pretty powerful.

Re:Does anybody still use eBay?

[CrashNBrn]

In places like Canada, and Australia you can do free bank transfers without resorting to WesternUnion. Which makes utilizing things like payPal just an added expense.

Google has hated ebay for awhile....

[WGFCrafty]

It's coming up on two years since the slashdot article [slashdot.org] announcing that Ebay bans Google checkout payments.

I'd be pissed too if Ebay pretty much implied that shitty little companies like propay.com can handle high dollar business transactions better.

Of course the lack of features or policies is probably not the reason at at all. Paypal is probably just scared of having it's market share shoot straight through the floor.

Re:RTFA^2

[Fastolfe]

Also from "TFA":

An ACCC spokeswoman said the ACCC had received the document from the parties in a PDF form for posting on the public register in that format.

She said it was not the ACCC's responsibility to check that all the identifiers had been stripped out because the parties insisted it was fine.

I read this as saying Google provided the "anonymized" PDF, and the ACCC said, "OK," and posted it. This would make it Google's error.

Mod parent up

[Boss Sauce]

Way too much sketchiness and outright fraud on eBay-- they seemed to stop engineering the system years ago.

I bet a few Google engineers have thought of this and at least a few have thrown a little 20% time at this isue...

Re:PayPal requires caution

[Nixoloco]

Actually, I think caveat venditor is more appropriate, considering your description of paypal.

Re:I can also produce a pdf with the same title

[PIBM]

Did you actually RTFA ? Google provided the governement with a document (original form is unknown, as the governement can save it as a doc, if you'd have seen the title you'd understand) and the 'watchdogs' made a pdf out of that document, which used the original government provided filename as the title.

Re:My eBay feedback 1000, still rooting for Google

[LVSlushdat]

Reading this made me check my eBay sales records.. I just sold one video card in the last week, sort of testing the eBay waters so to speak, having sold nada since all the new idiocy was announced by feebay.. On a 15.88 final sale price, I was charged a Final value fee by feebay of $1.39, and a previous transaction which sold for $15.50, in 2006, had an FVF of $0.81, for a nearly 60% increase... That's not including the PayPal fee, listing fee... I'm so through with feeBay... Hope they choke to death...

Re:Heh

[Shatrat]

Astroturf.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
They aren't advertising anonymously.
Google is criticizing an anti-competitive move that will hurt consumers as well as Google and pretty much everyone other than Ebay.
If they want to do so anonymously because they have advertising accounts with ebay, I don't see anything sinister about that.

Re:Heh

[packeteer]

Once the cat is out there is no maybe. It is either alive or dead and this has already happened and been discovered if the bag is open.

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not astroturfing. The circumstances are so far from any conception of astroturfing that it's not funny. Claims to the contrary demonstrate ignorance.

It is an official submission to the Australian competition authority (the ACCC). Anonymity is provided where there are legitimate reasons for providing it (for example another company that fears retaliation should their opposition to the proposal become known). Legitimacy is determined by the ACCC. The ACCC knows the identity of the submitter and is the only party that matters in making a decision. The submission is not attempting to influence the public (as with astroturfing) - they are making legal arguments to determine whether or not the ACCC should grant eBay immunity from the Trade Practices Act.

Re:I can also produce a pdf with the same title

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, anyone could created a similar incriminating document.

No they couldn't.

The posting was controlled by the ACCC - the Australian competition authority. The submission in question was posted on the ACCC official site where they post official applications or submissions dealing with the Trade Practices Act. They know the identity of the person who made the submission and are the sole arbiters of whether someone is allowed to remain anonymous.

Comments that eBay could have undertaken criminal actions ("Heck even Ebay could have") when dealing with the competition authority lack any credibility and are just an indication of extreme ignorance. You don't hack into government websites or fraudulently pretend to be someone else when dealing with the government on matters of Trade Practices law. That is the quick way to facing multiple criminal sanctions in court.

Re:PayPal requires caution

[sjbe]

I did get screwed by PayPal as a buyer once - bought two of an item and only received one, but I was told that as long as I received *something*, even an empty package, that PayPal wouldn't help me out. Maybe that's changed.

Nope. PayPal accepts delivery confirmation from a major carrier as "proof" that the item in question was successfully returned. They make NO effort to confirm that the item in question was actually in the box, in appropriate condition, or packed properly. I've received return boxes that someone put a china in with no padding whatsoever - PayPal still returns their money. I've received boxes containing nothing - PayPal still returns their money. I've had the carrier lose the package but claim it was "delivered" - PayPal still refunds the money.

In short, PayPal provides a decent (if imperfect) safety net for buyers but not so much for sellers compared with the alternatives.

Re:I can also produce a pdf with the same title

[TekPolitik]

Three shocking things about this story

Only shocking if you think Google is the sort of company that takes a stand on principle. They are not. Hell, a Sydney newspaper recently interviewed a senior executive at Google who was visiting the Sydney offices of Google at the time. In the article this senior executive denied the "do no evil" motto. The story, so she claimed, was that an engineer wrote it on a whiteboard in a meeting room used by the marketing division shortly after Google established one, fearing that Google would become evil. The motto was never, apparently, adopted as a corporate creed of any kind.

I understand it is common for engineers within Google to subscribe to the motto (and in evaluating this you need to take into account the fact that Google engineers have to be willing, as a condition of employment, to participate in applying for software and business method patents), but beyond the engineers it is nothing, not even an aspiration.

There is no need for that engineer to fear the possibility of Google becoming evil now, of course. It is pointless to fear that which has already occurred.

Re:Heh

[Onan]

Your reactions might be appropriate if the intent was to deceive the ACCC or Australians citizens who might be swayed by the critique. But the article implies that Google's goal was to keep the criticism anonymous from eBay, out of concern for possible retaliation.

So while your feelings about the relative merits of corporations and individuals appear to be very strong, they do not seem to be very relevant to this case. The anonymity was about the interactions between two corporations.

(And since you feel very strongly about the idea of disclosure, I will point out that Google is my employer. But my work for them is not connected to this situation, I know nothing about this interaction beyond what I've read in this article, and I'm speaking for myself, not for them.)

Re:My eBay feedback 1000, still rooting for Google

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong.

First of all, setting up a webstore (with a decent flat monthly fee, not one of those prebuilt things that suck the money out of you for each item inventoried) is next to impossible still in this day and age for a nontechie.

Ebay is around to avoid the mess with shopping carts and all that junk.

Also, ebay fees help on reducing noise/junk on a site and making sure sellers only sell that which is demanded. That way a site/it's search engine has to wade through spam/crap. I've seen many free auction sites that get filled up with junk. Even "good" items can be frustrating if the buyer can't make a purchase because the seller abandoned a site and won't care about clearing his profile since it costs nothing anyway.

However, ebay's fees are too high. I thought that they were money grubbing weasels since about 1998-99. They get about as much commissions as real auctions without doing any work in comparison. And at real auctions, some things bring much better prices.

Still, ebay would have its uses. If they didn't keep ratcheting up the fees.