Michael Arrington’s ambitious project to create a super-simple web tablet is dead, drowned in a bathtub half-full of greed and selfishness. This isn’t a happy story. More »
Google is currently working on getting artists to make skins for its Chrome Browser, which is pretty cool. Much less cool, however, is that one of the biggest companies in the world refuses to pay the artists. More »
In December, when we look back at everything that happened this year, we’ll remember today as the day that sanity prevailed over corporate greed. For today (well, yesterday technically, but we’re only writing about it today), eBay has withdrawn its efforts to restrict payment options for its users to PayPal and cash on collection.
It’s been a long and bloody battle, including companies like the Reserve Bank, Google and hundreds of eBay sellers all voicing their outrage that eBay could even attempt to restrict payment options in the name of “security”. In the end, the ACCC’s pre-announcement that it thought eBay were full of shit going to be anti-competitive with their Paypal-only move was enough for eBay to go back on their decision and pretend it never happened. More »
After months of ridicule for one of the stupidest decisions in the history of the Internet, it appears that the online auction giant eBay may have come to its senses. Today they’ve sent users an email stating that the payment changes scheduled for July 15 have been postponed indefinitely, until the ACCC makes their final ruling.
Of course, this doesn’t rule out some future madness that might take control of eBay’s board and make them insist that Paypal is the only way forward again, but at the moment it looks like sellers are safe from compulsory double payments.
It’s also important to note that the changes already brought in, like compulsory Paypal listing (among other forms of payment) are here to stay.
I wonder if it’s too late though… how many users have already made the switch to another auction site?
[ebay]
Despite the ACCC’s draft ruling and eBay’s subsequent delay of their plans to force all sellers to use PayPal and cash on delivery as their only methods of payment, APC is reporting that eBay are actually cutting off seller’s options now.
Apparently, when sellers go to list their items for sale, their hit with a notice that tells them that: “All items listed for sale on eBay.com.au on or after 17 June 2008 will be subject to the following changes:
You must offer PayPal on your listings.
Pay on pick up (ie paid for when picking up the item) can be offered in conjunction with PayPal.
No other payment methods can be added to your listing.”
The official response from eBay was that this was a mistake, caused by the fact that delaying the Paypal-only scheme is a complex matter that requires a fair amount of work.
I’m sure eBay sellers disagree. Considering eBay has stated that they’ll fight the ACCC’s decision, this definitely has an aroma of “up yours” to it.
[APCmag]
After the ACCC kicked ebay’s plans to only allow Paypal for online transactions square in the nuts last week, the auction site has delayed the cutoff date for the changeover. For a month.
They now plan to make you use Paypal only when transacting online from July 15. The ACCC may have some more to say about that, of course, but in the interim, you can still use any of the available online payment options.
From the press release:
eBay challenges yesterday’s Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) draft notice and is disappointed that the ACCC’s current view delays the opportunity to provide consumers a more secure way to shop on eBay.com.au with confidence.
eBay intends to work with the ACCC and hopes to achieve a final outcome which has the safety and security of eBay’s members as its paramount objective. eBay will delay the removal of other payment methods from the site until Tuesday 15 July.
It still blows me away that they’re still pushing the whole security reason as the catalyst for this move. I mean, if it were purely for the benefit of consumers, they’d cut back some of the fees involved for sellers.
Hopefully we’ll see the ACCC pull out a can of whoop-ass on eBay and this will fade away quietly in the night before July 15.
After Vista’s release, Creative’s Audigy Sound Blaster series lost a lot of their in-built functionality. Developer, good-guy and all around hero, Daniel_K stepped up to the challenge, putting together his own drivers and asking for non-obligatory donations in recognition of his effort. Daniel_K’s drivers restored functionality, and added some extra features to boot. That’s great news, right? Apparently not; Creative is pissed.
The RIAA always claims that its looking out for the livelihood of artists when it sues the hell out of alleged pirates, but in reality it’s really fighting to keep record industry executives rich by defending an outdated and unsustainable business model. While before the PR team at least made an attempt to make it seem like artists were priority #1, they seem to have given up: the RIAA is now trying to cut down artist’s royalties on digital downloads.
