eBay is banning Google advertisers from using the search term "eBay" to reach searchers. Jeff Housenbold, Vice President of Internet Marketing and Business Development for eBay, sent a letter to Google on June 5, 2003, along with a list of terms that eBay says are trademarked. Terms on the list include "ebay," "bay," and "auction web sites."

Read the whole article at:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m08/i07/s02

I think this is ridiculous. I mean, I could understand if eBay had a problem with people advertising their own auction sites under 'eBay'. I think that wouldn't be right.

But to not be allowed to offer your own software/service for eBay.. that's really stupid.

I'm sure someone will correct me on this, but how can E-bay possibly trademark "bay," and "auction web sites."!?!?!? Is the world going mad?

hahahaha. Maybe oneday Microsoft will email Google that if somebody searches for ASP, all should goto microsoft.com !!

And then Oracle and then IBM and then Linux. Only Companies will conquer the world and the service providers can't advertise. and then we will advertise with the companies and ask them for some leads. heheheheheh

Funny !! There should be something to govern this !!

eBay isn't trying to control the actual search results. I'm sure that Google wouldn't allow that.

They are simply trying to prevent advertisers to use ebay as their keyword for their ad. Apparently it's already been done, because a search for eBay on Google shows no ads on the side.