[yinyang]

so, after much hardwork and trying to make my new site ShmeeBay.com run fast and less graphics, i get notified by my webhost that Ebay has ordered them to remove my website.

they state that because my site is a discussion site about eBay (technically it's trying to forum all Ebay Sellers into a Union) and talks about eBay and has the word ebay in the domain name, that they have the right to bring it down. so if i named my site ChesapekeBay.com or TheBayofPigs.com and talked about eBay, they can also take me down?

in a separate letter to me, they also stated that they were successful in preventing the actual registration of the domain name "www.ebaysecurities.com". so i did some research and wouldn't you know it, although ebayforums.com, ebayforum.com, ebay-forums.com, ebaychat.com, ebaytalk.com, etc. have all been purchased by various people, there are no sites! eBay successfully pulls this gestapo ++++ and scares them into submission.

yet, chevytalk.com, hondaforums.com, fordforums.com, nissanforums.com, etc. are all unaffiliated with those companies and are up and running. nonetheless, i've been notified that eBay is preparing to sue me. who knows if the webhost will succumb. but i will try to put it up elsewhere.

and i will countersue. if they sue to bring my site down, i will countersue to for them to leave it up and then the host may have to just stay out of it and leave it up. i've confirmed with them that i have not violated my user agreement and on top of that, i'm not running any ads, etc. it's purely donation supported.

anyhow, if anyone's interested in reading the first steps of a potential full blown war with eBay, please go to: http://www.shmeebay.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36

thanks for reading!