Skip to main content

eBay to Test Online Advertising Auctions

According to Reuters, online marketplace eBay Inc. is set to unveil a keyword advertising system for eBay sellers to promote auctions on other Web sites, borrowing from the strategies of Google and Yahoo.

Michael van Swaaij, eBay's chief strategy officer, told a conference of software developers that eBay plans to allow Web site affiliates to run contextual ads for eBay auctions in exchange for a cut of the resulting eBay sales.

EBay's system differs from pay-per-click advertising systems offered by Google and rivals Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. by linking only to eBay auctions rather than serving as a generic advertising network.

In coming months, the program, dubbed 'eBay AdContext', will allow Web sites to embed simple snippets of code that can then automatically act to showcase items for sale on eBay's site, eBay officials said.

Popular posts from this blog

When AI Spending Reaches $3.6 Trillion

Enterprise AI budgets are flowing in two directions at once, and only one of them builds an asset the buyer actually controls. Gartner's latest forecast puts worldwide AI spending at $2.7 trillion in 2026, but the composition of that figure matters far more than the total. Executives who read only the headline will miss the tension between what they are buying and what they actually own. The Number Behind the Number Gartner projects 2026 AI spending is a 49.5 percent increase over 2025, with $3.6 trillion forecast for 2027. AI infrastructure accounts for $1.5 trillion of this year's total, more than half. Gartner's John-David Lovelock calls the data center buildout the largest infrastructure project humanity has undertaken, and describes demand as inelastic even as memory prices climb. Compute Concentration is a Sovereignty Issue Gartner expects hyperscalers and service providers buying AI-optimized servers to remain the largest single area of spending. For an enterprise, t...