Like Google, Yahoo and MSFT, now eBay has an engine that will serve up context sensitive advertising on affiliate websites (
link). The only difference is that, upon clicking, users would be sent to eBay's auctions. Based on initial
reports, affiliates can accept the keywords that eBay generates by scanning their content and connecting it to eBay auction keywords or they can get the list of recommended keywords using
eBay APIs and choose the ones that they prefer.
While eBay claims that this service is complementary to the existing ad engines from Google and Yahoo, I wonder if they are true complements. Take for instance a situation where companies could be listing their products on eBay. Would Yahoo and Google agree to direct traffic to eBay? Also, given that GoogBase can substitute some of eBay's functionality, would eBay agree to coexist with other context engines? Their mutual adjustments should be interesting to watch.