In the video, Omidyar talks about how retailers shouldn't be rewarded "by virtue of their stature outside the online community." And yet isn't that exactly what eBay has done for Buy.com? Donahoe is set to address eBay sellers in a keynote Friday morning at its annual eBay Live conference. How will he explain the Buy.com deal? It will surely take the very best corporate doublespeak — the sort that only a former management consultant can come up with.

Previously:

• A is for Adelson, who cofounded Digg


• B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big


• F is for Fitzpatrick, and "hookers and blow"


• L is for Levchin, who never goes slow

When eBay's then-CEO Meg Whitman was wooing Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster, she was so nice! She even promised that they'd get lots of playdates on the board with dreamy eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and Newmark and Buckmaster believed her when she said Omidyar held the same Sunday-school values they did:

Mr. Newmark and Mr. Buckmaster were impressed by Ms. Whitman's presentation; most notably the importance to eBay of its community and eBay's dedication to Pierre Omidyar's Community Values — particularly the values that "We believe that people are basically good;" "We believe than an honest, opn environment can bring out the best in people;" and "We encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated." These were very similar to craigslist's own principles and, in reliance on eBay's expressed commitment to these principles, along with Ms. Whitman's representations, craigslist agreed to resume discussions.

At the time, eBay did not disagree with Craig's impression, but instead enthusiastically embraced it. For example, when Mr. Price [Ed. Note: Garrett Price, VP of new ventures] of eBay (who witnessed virtually all of the negotiations involving the transaction) was provided a late draft of Craig's blog entry, his response was "[I] Love it." However, eBay did not post a link to Craig's blog entry on its own website once the transaction had closed, as eBay had promised it would.

And that was only the start of eBay's bullying behavior. Included in the complaint is a screenshot of text ads on Google that Craigslist offered as evidence of eBay's trademark infringement, false advertising and anti-competitive practices.

Of course, none of this will be settled any time soon — a case management conference isn't scheduled until October 10. And based on how nasty this is getting, I doubt a settlement — at least one not involving lollipops — will be reached anytime soon.(Photo by AP/Jeff Chiu)

Why, precisely, is Craigslist trying to dilute eBay's stake? Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka speculates that Craigslist is looking for an outside investor. Nonsense; as Kafka himself points out, Craigslist doesn't need the money. Far more likely: Newmark and Buckmaster are angling to issue more shares to themselves so they don't have to share as much of the company's profits with eBay.

Ricardo, one of the most obvious followers of Ebay, launched its online auctions company four years after Pierre Omidyar's original. Twitter's emulators, Germany's shameless Samwer brothers, took only eight months. Blame globalization, and international access to news sites such as Techcrunch.

Twitter's Evan Williams may have every right to be angry, but he should be flattered, too, by the imitation. Pirates, whether they're replicating Hollywood movies, or internet startups, only pick the big hits. Ebay, despite annoying foreign copies, dominates the online auctions business; and the concept the Samwer brothers last stole, Facebook, isn't doing badly, either.

Gates stepped down in an attempt to convince [eBay founder] Pierre Omidyar that Gates shares all the same values as Pierre in terms of charity. It was a huge signal to Pierre that Gates is following in Pierre's footsteps by stepping down and focusing on word issues full time and remaining Chairman of MS like Pierre has done. The premise is that with a combined MS-Ebay they can do more for the world together.

MS should hope Pierre gets the message and can still influence decisions like this. EBay CEO Meg Whitman just told the Financial Times that big-time mergers are unlikely right now. In other words, she just needs a sweeter deal.

Ebay cautious on web mergers [Financial Times]

The tech moguls gave to a wide range of recipients this year. Bill Gates is curing children in Africa, and Larry Ellison is donating to the poverty-stricken people of Harvard University. Such a noble man, Larry. Here's a breakdown of the top tech donations:

Missing: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, Jerry Yang...guess "changing the world" only goes as far as Gmail, iPods, and webcast reality shows. (Okay, Larry and Sergey have the Google foundation. Did they not bother putting their own pennies in the collection basket?)

The 2005 Slate 60 [Slate]