Internet Guru: eBay Fascist in Treatment of Sellers

By: Ina Steiner Thu Feb 14 2008 22:39:30

Former PayPal executive Dave McClure interviewed author, journalist and blogger Kara Swisher of All Things D and asked her what she would do if she were CEO for a day at Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, Facebook, MySpace, & AOL. What she had to say about eBay will probably resonate in a particularly profound way with sellers in light of the changes eBay announced on January 29th.

"I was always worried about what happens to eBay when the Internet gets as good a marketplace. I think it's really hard for them, they have to really open themselves up in a much more significant way and allow people to do what they want more.

"I've always felt they were a little bit too fascist in their treatment of sellers and how people buy things and I think once the Internet becomes more and more perfect, it's hard to be the marketplace when the Internet is the marketplace."

Kara's take on eBay is about 2:30 minutes into the video interview, but the entire clip is worth watching.

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