A pair of Antitrust Lawsuits filed against eBay

[mandy]

Two antitrust lawsuits were filed against eBay in April 2007...

Malone's lawsuit alleges that eBay "utilizes its nationwide monopoly of the on-line auction market to monopolize the available forms of payment that sellers can use on eBay."

eBay restricts which payment methods its sellers advertise in listings and bans sellers from accepting cash, wire transfer services like Western Union, as well as several competing products, including Google Checkout...

The second class-action complaint was filed by Ann Farmer and Todd Van Pelt on April 23, 2007. That lawsuit alleges that eBay possesses monopoly power in the online auction market, estimating it controls over 90 percent of the market in part due to the "network effect."

The complaint goes on to cite eBay's alleged anti-competitive activities, saying the company acquires its competitors; forces sellers to use PayPal; and blocks competitor Google from online auctions...

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m05/i04/s02

contact info for the 2 law firms: http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blo...96265.html