Sunday, July 09, 2006

Google Scares EBay Into Changes

PayPal's president has been replaced by Skype's president, while eBay drops Google Checkout into the laundry list of alternative payment services banned by the online marketplace.

You might be able to get "It" on eBay, but you won't get it with Google Checkout. If you get It with PayPal, it will be with Rajiv Dutta's PayPal, not Jeff Jordan's.

EBay announced some changes in senior management after the markets closed on Wall Street yesterday. The shuffling resembled a game of "musical corner offices," but when the music stopped playing, it was PayPal president Jordan left out of the game.

Jordan's departure from the company has been disclosed as a "planned departure." eBay CEO Meg Whitman said in a statement that she is sorry to see her close friend go.

It will be interesting to see where Jordan ends up post-eBay. A year ago, he was looking forward to Google's challenge to PayPal. Now he's out, and we have to wonder if The Fear got to him or not.

EBay appears to be feeling The Fear. Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes noted that eBay had officially changed its Accepted Payments policy to ban Google Payment as an option.

Steiner also said eBay changed the name of the policy from Safe Payments to Accepted Payments this week. That move looks like a tweak to avoid offending Google and its legal team, since eBay has had no problem implying smaller payment services were not safe.

Our Jason Lee Miller predicted this change in October 2005. That prediction was prompted by changes in eBay's Safe Payments Policy text, which focused on the debut of new payment services:


"From time to time, as new payment services arise, eBay will evaluate them to determine whether they may present trust and safety concerns and are appropriate for the marketplace."

One of the factors involved in determining the trustworthiness and safety of a newly arisen payment service is:

"Whether the payment service has a substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services (new services without such a track record generally cannot be promoted on eBay)"

As part of the executive shakeup, Rajiv Dutta, who only moved up to the Skype job earlier in 2006, will take over Jordan's responsibilities as president of PayPal. EBay noted Skype VP of Products Alex Kazim will get Dutta's former Skype gig.

A new role created for Skype, Chief Marketing Officer and Director of Country Operations Worldwide, will be occupied by Henry Gomez. He will ascend from general manager for Skype North America.

Meanwhile, Lorrie Norrington shifts from president and CEO of Shopping.com to president of eBay International. She will have responsibility for all of eBay's international sites as well as the Shopping.com comparison site.

Whitman praised the leadership abilities of the newly shuffled executives. Now it's up to Google to actually challenge eBay by doing something with Checkout, Base, Froogle, and all the other pieces of a potential marketplace it has already

source : http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20060707GoogleScareseBayIntoChanges.html

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