In an attempt to step up intellectual property ownership enforcement eBay has implemented a program that scans auction posting for possible violations. When eBay finds the suspicious listing it terminates it without warning, email notification, or explanation. Just like that! Wham, and a listing is gone, erased, and if it was yours you'd have to re-key all the elaborate description information from scratch because the listing is not only removed but totally erased from the database.

When I complained to why my 6-CD music specials were cancelled, eBay's response was that they thought that the music was pirated and thus cancelled the listing. When I responded that I owned all the copyright the eBay retorted that I must say so in the auction description. This means that if you want to sell pirated music all you have to do is to write that you own copyright to get away with it...

Later on eBay killed my other auction for Intel CPU fan with the reason being misleading description. It turns out that I had a fat finger typo and wrote $14.95 shipping for a cooling fan, which was enough for eBay to remove the listing without warning and notification.

On the bright side the insertion fees were credited back. But I do think we need another auction site to seriously compete with eBay. Ubid does not quite do it, and Egg Head auctions are long gone.

A strong competitor to eBay would make our auctioning experience better. For instance the search at eBay Motors is horrid as it does not allow specifying mileage as a search criteria! And the myEbay page is a terrible mess too. Perhaps Amazon should start auctions to keep eBay in check.