In a deal between two of the Internet's most prominent players, Google will begin selling advertising for eBay outside the U.S. and help buyers quickly ring an online merchant to do business.

O2 customers will from this weekend be able to access internet auction site eBay on ordinary mobile phones, logging on to the auction site from wherever they are. The launch follows a trial of the service on the operator’s high-end i-mode phones earlier this year, which O2 said revealed a strong demand for the service. According to a source at O2, the object of the service is not primarily to allow mobile phone users to initiate bids but to allow them to track the progress of a bid.

Unhappy professional eBay traders have staged a boycott of the online auction site to protest at a rise in fees and a drop in the visibility of their items. Ebay said about 100 UK traders were involved, although participants said more than 300 took part in the action.

Attention eBay auctioneers: Want to get a higher price for an item you're trying to sell? Set the auction's starting price as low as possible. Unless it is an item you don't believe there's a lot of interest in; in that case, start the auction at a higher price.

eBay sent an email to sellers in the United Kingdom inviting them to learn more about eBay Express, due to launch "later in 2006." eBay spokesperson Catherine England said, "We haven't announced a specific date for the UK launch of eBay Express, but we have set up a site where folks who are interested in learning more can get some additional information," pointing to http://www.ebayexpress.co.uk.

Angry eBay sellers are threatening to boycott the UK auction site next week in protest at changes introduced to attract more buyers. eBay has made the changes to its Shops service, which lets sellers have all their eBay listings in one place, because it was "impairing" the buyer experience.

The Metropolitan Police Force has announced a partnership with eBay to crack down on the trade in stolen mobile phones over the internet auction site.

Several major advertisers are teaming up with online auctioneer eBay Inc. to test an idea for selling television advertising in an electronic marketplace, the group announced Friday.

Auctioning4u the UK’s first and fastest growing chain of eBay drop off stores, is pleased to announce it has bought the assets of Trading Nation. Trading Nation was an eBay fulfillment provider specialising in the business-to-business segment and had several large clients.

A good reputation at Ebay is "worth its weight in gold", according to German researchers who have conducted a detailed analysis of the relationship between positive feedback and successful sales on the auction site.

Caris and Company analyst Tim Boyd expects strong listings volume at eBay in the third quarter, given the online auctioneer's strong listings data so far this quarter.

The pendulum of negative sentiment has swung too far on shares of eBay, as investors are now exaggerating the stock's risk, according to a Tuesday report from Bear Stearns.

eBay sellers found a creative outlet to vent their frustration over Store fee increases that were announced last week. A search on eBay for the term "fee hike" yielded more than 100 auctions protesting the rate hike, many of them humorous.

Providing a modest boost to its depressed shares, eBay Inc. reported second-quarter results on Wednesday in line with analyst expectations, and it disclosed plans to buy back up to $2 billion in stock in what would be the first share repurchase in the Internet giant's history.

TheStreet.com has some excellent tips on selling on the new eBay Express platform.

eBay, which owns rival payment processor PayPal, has this week tweaked its Safe Payments policy to blacklist Google Checkout as a payment option. It also changed the name of the policy, which is now called 'Accepted Payments', presumably to avoid filing Google's new service under the term 'unsafe'.

The online auction site eBay has announced plans to launch an e-commerce site this autumn, which it says will allow small and medium companies to compete with leading UK High Street retailers.

"There are those who get rich on eBay, but there is also more smoke than fire," says Joe Kennedy, author of "The Small Business Owner's Manual." "There are a lot of people working really hard and not making much money. The kicker is that they don't really realize it."

Google's long anticipated online-payment service, code-named GBuy, launched on Thursday under the official name, Google Checkout.

EBay traders will be able to call each other free over the internet. The pilot scheme will allow buyers and sellers to talk to each other via Skype, which is owned by eBay.