Recently the world of online auctioneers saw the rates at eBay spike a little higher, and has a number of sellers very unhappy about the situation. This has also sparked a number of eBay listings surrounding this hike, like this T-Shirt “I survived the eBay Rate Increase of August ’06”. Wonder how many they will sell?

Finding information on the eBay rate increase was more difficult than expected. One would expect to find a press release, but a look at their PR page come up blank (). I’m curious, eBay sends out a ton of messages advertising free listing days and other various news to its users. I on the other hand did not receive a single message from them stating the rate increase. Would this not seem like a natural thing to do?

Many are turning to Google in hopes that the internet search giant will come out and develop a true eBay competitor. Today eBay has a virtual monopoly on the online auction business. While there are many auction sites on the internet, none can even come close to comparing to the immense power and spread of eBay. Where’s Google? Even Yahoo has an auction site, although I have to be honest, I have yet to try it.

This does bring up the question, why has Google not come out yet and created a competitor? Google seems to have a knack for this kind of thing. It seems to me that because of the power and revenue generated by AdWords ads, they could do quite well even offering a free online auction service. The ad revenue could far exceed the auction listing fees and combined with an even stronger online presence, Google could certainly overtake eBay and profit considerably.

A search of Google Labs, or even a general internet search doesn’t turn up anything official even suggesting that Google is thinking about going in this direction, but it does seem like a natural progression seeing as how they have roughly 50% of search already, and have developed a name trusted around the world.