It appears ebay and google are having a bit of a lovers tiff at the moment with Ebay pulling all paid search advertising in the US on account of Google planning a party to promote Google Checkout that clashed with an Ebay live event!
Ok, so it does go a little deeper than that. Ebay are refusing to allow Google Checkout to become used as a payment method on its auction site. According to Ebay their concerns relate to “fraud, security and related concerns” but undoubtedly the underlying fact is that they want to keep Paypal as the monopoly holder for Ebay transactions. Google originally planned the party as a form of protest but have since cancelled after discussions with Ebay officials.
Ebay claim their removal of paid search listings is a mere “experiment” and a process fo assessing the most effective allocation of marketing budget and it wil be interesting what the results of this “experiement” are. With Google accounting for approx. 10% of Ebays traffic and Ebay spending a reported $26 million monthly on Adwords it will be interesting to see who needs who the most!