Google Outed as Anonymous eBay Critic

The Google Checkout/Ebay Paypal wars continue.

Ebay Australia currently allows merchants to accept credit cards, direct debit, money orders and checks for purchases, but from June 17 they want to allow only PayPal or cash on delivery. When the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) asked for public comments on the proposal a lot of of people responded. But an anonymous 38 page document that is highly critical of Ebay’s move was submitted on May 26, leading to speculation on who the author might be.

It turns out, the title of the document, hidden in the PDF metadata, gave a very good clue: “Microsoft Word - 204481916_1_ACCC Submission by Google re eBay Public _2_.DOC.” An Australian named David Bromage first discovered it.

The document is still available on the ACCC’s website (and is embedded below), with the title stripped out. But the Australian newspapers are all over this now.

Google’s (GOOG) competing product to eBay (EBAY), Google Checkout, is only available to merchants in the US and UK, so they don’t directly compete yet with PayPal in the Australian market. Apparently, that hasn’t stopped them from trying to keep their options there open.

In the document, Google says Ebay’s actions are anti-competitive, that the public benefits claimed by Ebay are “illusory” and that the proposal will result in significant public detriment. They also request that the ACCC ban Ebay from the action under the Australian Trade Practices Act.

Will eBay retaliate? Last year they temporarily pulled all Ebay advertising on Google after Google announced a Google Checkout party at an Ebay event. If they get that mad over a party, I can’t imagine how they’ll respond to this 38 page treatise on the evils of PayPal.

The full document is here. And in other news, PayPal was finally able to fix that drop down menu bug that plagued users for over ten days and was ignored until the press and blogs started to pay attention.

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Comments

[RB9562:]

For all the acclaim/praise Google receives they have been caught in a number of underhanded moves over the years...

2008 Jun 02 01:37 PM

[biggnick15:]

Theres nothing underhanded about that whatsoever.

2008 Jun 02 04:30 PM

[Itsjustal:]

Okay...I'm confused. Which of the above two posters works for Google, and which one does not? LOL!!!!!

2008 Jun 02 09:46 PM

[Et tu, Brute!:]

Checking several of the Aussie news sites, there is an interesting theory bouncing around that this was a deliberate "plant", why would Google use Word, which is not theirs, and why would they be so idiotically careless as to let something so basically simple slip their notice.

Check it out. The comments on the different Australian sites are interesting.

2008 Jun 03 12:40 AM

[Bjorn:]

Don't be evil :-)

2008 Jun 03 01:54 AM

[PK de C'ville:]

Get over it.

In the big scheme of things, this not that 'evil'; embarrassing yes, but evil no.

In the adult world this is called being 'diplomatic'. You don't want to throw lye in their eyes by signing your name, but you do have an opinion you want aired.

Evil is what msft did to IBM's OS/2, Apple's Mac OS, Netscape, and several other trusting groups back in the good old days before they were convicted of thuggery.

Remember, it was a msft exec who said (in a moment of candor) to a dead opponent, 'You had a great product and strategy. The only thing you did wrong was to trust us!"

Now, that's evil. MSFT wins in a slam dunk!

2008 Jun 03 10:38 AM