eBay justice probe comes out clean

NEWS eBay has been cleared of any anti-competitive practices by the US Department of Justice. eBay was being investigated for blocking auction aggregator sites from including details of eBay auctions on their sites. Auction aggregators allow users to monitor several auction sites at once, but eBay claims such sites violate its intellectual property rights. In 1999 eBay filed a lawsuit against auction aggregator Bidder's Edge, which was using automatic search technology to extract details of auctions from eBay's site. The action was settled in 2001, but eBay has been under investigation from the Department of Justice since 2000. eBay said in its annual report: "The division has closed its investigation without taking action against us."