Bidder’s Edge was found guilty of trespassing on eBay’s computer
system. A preliminary injunction was issued by US District Judge
Ronald Whyte, barring Bidder’s Edge from using an automated program
to search eBay’s database without permission.
Judge Whyte said the type of searches carried out by Bidder’s
Edge, which perform thousands of instructions per minute, block out
part of a computer system’s capacity and potentially slow its
overall processing. Whyte ruled that to allow such searches by one
company would encourage others, causing “reduced system
performance, system unavailability, or data losses.”
The US Department of Justice is currently investigating whether
eBay is violating antitrust law by trying to stop smaller
companies, including Bidder’s Edge, from listing on their own sites
items being auctioned by eBay customers.
Bidder’s edge reportedly accessed eBay’s site up to 100,000
times per day over a 10 month period, accounting for 1.1% of eBay’s
total data transmissions. EBay items made up 69% of the items in
the Bidder’s Edge database.
