According to the Associated Press, EBay recently withdrew its advertising operations from the American Google site. eBay stated that this move was an experiment to determine the most effective way to provide users access to the eBay website. However, this action provoked outright retaliation from Google. The reason is that eBay announced this news right when Google was about to hold a conference on June 14. Google planned to draw the attention of users attending eBay's annual celebration meeting in Boston.