Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Apparently being uniquely local in Australia for eBay is attempting to
gain a monopoly by using market dominance to eliminate competition.
Unfortunately for eBay, however, it now has more to worry about than
phlegmatic regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission (ACCC) and a few small local competitors. No less than the
Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Bankers Association have
come out publicly against the eBay Australia move in submissions to the
ACCC.
Both the small online payments competitors and the large banks are concerned that eBay will by stealth convert a large proportion of its 5 million Australian users to PayPal. This in turn could go a long way to eliminating alternative payments systems on sites other than eBay.
With such powerful forces aligned against eBay Australia, the ACCC may
have no choice but to issue a competition notice designed to block the
PayPal-only move under the anti-competitive provisions of the
Australian Trade Practices Act.
If eBay is forced to back down in Australia over its attempt to enforce
PayPal-only transactions, it will be a serious loss of face for the
company, which is already facing revolts from its users over fee hikes
worldwide. In that case, the "e" in eBay may well be interpreted as
shorthand for egg-on-face.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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