Valleywag
your privacy is an illusion
Posts Tagged “
eBay
”
your privacy is an illusion
once you're lucky, twice you're good
B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big
Few people outside Silicon Valley have heard of Roelof Botha. But the former CFO of PayPal is famous here. His two claims to fame: negotiating that company's $1.5 billion sale to eBay, and later, as a partner at Sequoia Capital, investing in YouTube and quickly flipping the startup to Google for $1.65 billion. Is it a coincidence that that figure is 10 percent higher than his PayPal score? Few insiders think so. Botha gets four pages in Sarah Lacy's Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good — more than Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Other figures who appear on the second page of her Web 2.0 book's index: John Battelle, Ning CEO Gina Bianchini, Facebook board member Jim Breyer, blog blowhard Jason Calacanis, and YouTube cofounder Steve Chen, whom Botha made quite wealthy. More »
data portability
MySpace to eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo: Thanks for the add!
Who are these people? That's the problem I've long had with sites like Twitter and eBay, which offer anonymous user names and little else to go by. And that's been the charm of Facebook, which aims to tie online identities with real ones by asking for work and school information, which is harder to fudge than a screen name. Had eBay and Twitter announce a partnership to share data with Facebook, I'd be impressed. Instead, they, as well as Yahoo, have partnered with MySpace instead to share profile data. Buffoonish technopundits are hailing this as an "advance in data portability." But what does it really mean? Now, in addition to a login like "awesomeguy1980," I'll get to see drunken party snapshots of someone before I reject their Twitter follower request.
AT&T plots Skype rival
AT&T and as many as 15 other big phone companies are planning to launch a rival to Skype in 2009. Why don't they just buy it from eBay? That seems easier. [GigaOm]
AT&T and as many as 15 other big phone companies are planning to launch a rival to Skype in 2009. Why don't they just buy it from eBay? That seems easier. [GigaOm]
jim buckmaster
Responding to eBay, Craigslist CEO digs hole deeper
Jim Buckmaster has just set himself up for a messy court fight. Responding to eBay's lawsuit against Craigslist and its board — the board being Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark — he has claimed that he and Newmark issued additional shares in the company to themselves "for the sake of protecting the long term well-being of the Craigslist community." Let's leave aside the question of how the community benefits from Buckmaster and Newmark increasing their ownership. Craigslist is registered as a for-profit company; as such, its only legal responsibility is to its shareholders, not its users. More »
jean-marie le pen
Looking for a neo-Nazi's armored car? Buy it now on eBay
Far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen once called the Holocaust "just a detail" — worth maybe 10 to 15 lines in a 1,000-page book about World War II. The comments cost him a $284,033 fine. Now Le Pen is out of cash. To make some, he's auctioning his armored 1992 Peugot 605 on eBay. The latest bid: 10 million euros. The Peugot has a full leather interior and a CD player, but it's probably not worth that much. Still, if that sounds like a bargain for your very own piece of revisionist history, you've got until May 10 before eBay's auction closes.
craigslist
Why Craig Newmark had better not piss off Jim Buckmaster
eBay's lawsuit against Craigslist, alleging that founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster conspired to squeeze eBay out of the company, is fascinating for many reasons. It reveals Buckmaster and Newmark's naked greed: They issued shares of the company to themselves to increase their stakes and decrease eBay's.But it also shows how tight the two have been with Craigslist's workers. eBay owns, or owned 28.4 percent of the company, a stake acquired from early Craigslist employee Philip Knowlton. Knowlton sold his shares in part because Buckmaster and Newmark were trying to squeeze him out, too. (Are you beginning to see a pattern?) The two, acting as Craigslist's board of directors, issued themselves one new share for every five they already owned, a move which pushed eBay's ownership stake down to 24.85 percent — a level which, among other things, eliminated eBay's ability to elect a director for the company. Do the math, and it becomes clear that Craigslist's other shareholders — presumably its employees — own about 3.3 percent of the company. That's a miserably small portion of equity to give employees of a tech startup; normally, about 20 percent of a company's equity is reserved for employees. More »
feuds
Details of eBay's complaint against Craigslist revealed
The text of eBay's complaint filed in a Delaware court [PDF] has made its way online, and in it, eBay "seeks equitable and legal relief" from Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark for:[B]reaching their fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and good faith by implementing certain self-dealing transactions challenged herein which were designed specifically to benefit themselves to the detriment of eBay.Allegedly Buckmaster and Newmark attempted to issue themselves new shares in order to keep more of the profits to themselves, instead of sharing the 28.4 percent eBay can demand for their stake in the company, as Valleywag predicted. After the jump, the blow-by-blow account as detailed by the Wall Street Journal. More »
exits
Meg Whitman cleans house, but not at eBay
Meg Whitman isn't losing any sleep over eBay's role in prepping Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui for his rampage that left 33 dead. Asked what was her worst moment at eBay, Meg confides to confides to Portfolio: "The site outage in 1999," adding that she had to sleep on a cot "for multiple nights." Whitman goes on to give eBay kudos for being "incredibly vigilant around trust and safety and keeping the .01% [of customers who aren't 'basically good'] in line," a boast made all the more ridiculous by the company's recent defense of its sale of combustion-enhancing fertilizer to troubled teen Ryan Schallenberger. (The gist of eBay's defense: Ammonium nitrate isn't just used to blow up high schools and federal buildings.) Seeking Alpha has a complete transcript of the interview, in which you'll find these nuggets Portfolio's editors skipped: More »
geek love
After Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster flexes muscles at eBay, fan offers to rub away the soreness
Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster fired back at eBay on the official Craigslist blog last night, asserting that the auction giant, the owner of a large stake in Craigslist, didn't bother to contact anyone at the company before filing suit. eBay's action, wrote Buckmaster, "hints at ulterior motives." Dozens of commenters left notes in support of the online classifieds site. My favorite is from one Genevieve McGill:Dear Craig's List, I LOVE U VERY MUCH!!! PRETTY-PLEASE let me know if I can do ANYTHING to support you. I am a Powerful,Licensed Massage therapist in FL who will use ALL of My intellectual BICEPS & anything I've got to be your dutiful minion.And I bet she's only one of many fans who'd be happy to help release the hunky Buckmaster's eBay-taunting tension.
lawsuits
eBay sues Craig Newmark as Craigslist tries to squeeze it out
Expect a rash of headlines accusing auction giant eBay of bullying saintly Craig Newmark. eBay has sued Newmark, his business partner Jim Buckmaster, and Craigslist. The charge? Craigslist has allegedly diluted eBay's 28.4 percent stake in the company, which the auction giant acquired from a former Craigslist employee. The part of the story Newmark and Buckmaster don't want anyone to hear: The pair made about $16 million in the process of letting eBay buy the stake in their company. The deal included a shareholder-rights agreement which ought to prevent Craigslist from diluting eBay's stake in the company, people familiar with the deal have told Valleywag. By squeezing out eBay, Newmark and Buckmaster appear to be having their cake and eating it too. Relations between the companies had already deteriorated: eBay had a seat on the Craigslist board, at one point occupied by founder Pierre Omidyar, until last year. More »
Your loss is eBay's gain
In today's quarterly earnings call, when asked how eBay's business would fare in the oncoming recession, CEO John Donahoe remarked that the company is "a place where you can turn assets into cash in seven to fourteen days." Good times are here again! (Photo AP/Douglas C. Pizac)
Everything but auctions boosts eBay's bottom line
Recently anointed eBay CEO John Donahoe thumped his chest over the auction giant's first-quarter earnings. He praised a "diverse portfolio of businesses" as revenues jumped 24 percent to $2.19 billion and earnings rose 22 percent to $459.7 million. The problem: Younger businesses like Skype and PayPal aren't as profitable as eBay's core e-commerce business, which is why profit margins dropped. [WSJ]
Recently anointed eBay CEO John Donahoe thumped his chest over the auction giant's first-quarter earnings. He praised a "diverse portfolio of businesses" as revenues jumped 24 percent to $2.19 billion and earnings rose 22 percent to $459.7 million. The problem: Younger businesses like Skype and PayPal aren't as profitable as eBay's core e-commerce business, which is why profit margins dropped. [WSJ]
antitrust
Australians question eBay's PayPal-only policy
Years ago, PayPal was an independent company which fought constantly with eBay to be allowed on the site as a way to settle accounts after an auction was won. Now, years after eBay bought PayPal, the payments service is elbowing out all manner of competition. In Australia, eBay is limiting purchases to either PayPal or cash on delivery — no checks or money orders allowed, let alone rival electronic payment methods. In the U.S., eBay was sued last year for tying PayPal too closely to its online marketplace. How soon they forget: PayPal is aiming to quash an economic freedom its founders, including noted libertarian Peter Thiel, fought for.
exits
Startup employee retirement plan: sell toast on eBay
A friend of an animator laid off from a recently imploded East Bay videogames startup writes to pimp the newly unemployed buddy's latest venture: selling toast on eBay. But not just any toast — it's toast that will be lovingly sculpted into the shape of each of America's 50 great states. First up? Texas. You laugh now, but you won't think it's such a terrible idea when the recession has you out on the street and your options underwater.
geeks gone pathetic
Man plans to sell his entire life on eBay
Australian resident Ian Usher plans to sell his entire life on eBay, including his house, car, motorbike, job, and friends. Opening bid on eBay: $1. But buyer beware. Usher hates the goods so much he's prepared to leave them all behind with only his clothes on his back, he told the Sydney Morning Herald. The auction starts June 22.
history
Ada Lovelace portrait from 1820 found on eBay
U.S. Army Master Sergeant Robert McLaughlin's obsession with Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace paid off when he found an original watercolor of the young noble, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, for sale on eBay. Widely credited with having created the first computer program, a system of calculating Bernoulli numbers for Charles Babbage's steam-powered Analytical Engine, "The Enchantress of Number" is a dashingly romantic figure. She's made numerous appearances in novels, including steampunk ur-text The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. More »
eBay, PayPal layoffs confirmed by CNN
Oh, look, Valleywag's tipsters came through — 125 laid off at eBay worldwide. [CNNMoney]
Oh, look, Valleywag's tipsters came through — 125 laid off at eBay worldwide. [CNNMoney]
