Internet giants Google and eBay face off for the first time

eBay, Google's most important advertiser, had planned to hold its Live! 2007 auction site donor conference on Thursday evening. However, Google later announced it would hold a grand event at the same time, prompting eBay to angrily remove its ads from the search giant's website. The gathering Google intended to host in Boston was more of an informal tea party. Regarding this deliberate disruption by Google, eBay protested by withdrawing Google ads. Subsequently, Google canceled the gathering arrangements. In an attempt to avoid conflict, eBay then announced that the ad suspension was part of a routine experiment in its marketing plan. Commentators, however, indicated that such a reason was clearly untenable, and trusting their explanation might be as believable as believing that eBay could auction off a bridge in Brooklyn.