Here’s an excerpt from a note to all PayPal employees sent by eBay Inc. CEO, John Donahoe, this morning:

As you may already have seen, Yahoo! announced this morning that Scott Thompson is joining the company as CEO, effective immediately. Scott informed me Tuesday afternoon, saying that despite his passion for PayPal, this was an opportunity he felt he had to take. I know I speak for everyone in wishing Scott the best.

I will serve in the interim role as President and will be meeting with the PayPal leadership team this morning to plan a seamless transition. And while I’m sure Scott’s decision is a shock to many of you, as it was to me, there is one thing I am certain of: PayPal has an enormous opportunity in front of it and we will not slow down. We will not miss a beat. And we will continue driving the incredible momentum that each of you has helped to create.

PayPal had an outstanding 2011 and a strong close to the fourth quarter. PayPal’s vision is clear. Our strategies are set and we have a strong, focused leadership team in place. And across PayPal, we have you — an incredibly talented team, committed to creating the future of money and changing how the world shops and pays.

Let’s do it, and take this special business to the next level in 2012 and beyond.

I join John in wishing Scott all the best.

I’ll update this blog post with any new developments as they happen.

Cheers,
RBH

“We are honored to learn that TRUSTe and the Ponemon Institute have recognized our leading practices for privacy, security and trust – all qualities we feel are synonymous with our brand,” said Scott Shipman, CPO of eBay, Inc. “At eBay, we constantly and carefully listen to customer feedback and respond with program enhancements to improve the high level of trust and satisfaction our members enjoy.”

The Top 10 companies are as follows:
1. eBay
2. Verizon
3. U.S. Postal Service
4. WebMD
5. IBM
6. Procter & Gamble
7. Nationwide
8. Intuit
9. Yahoo!
10. Facebook

I had tried to break down why I felt eBay was recognized so highly in privacy trust when 2008′s report came out back in December, 2008. You can see that break down HERE.

**What is Privacy Trust? (As defined by TRUSTe and Ponemon Institute):
Privacy trust is a process companies can implement to motivate trust and confidence in how its leaders, employees and contractors (vendors) protect and secure private information about people and their families. Privacy trust requires a company to ensure that actual practices are aligned with the public’s perception about how their personal information is used, shared and retained. The key components of privacy trust are:
• Notice – Companies should clearly communicate their privacy policies and data practices to customers. These policies must be updated to reflect any changes in practices and policy.
• Choice or Consent – Companies should respect customers’ personal data and will not share non-public personal data, except as permitted or required by law.
• Access and Redress – Customer and employees should have reasonable access to their personal information as required by law and have the ability to correct any inaccuracies or misinformation held about them.
• Prudent Security – Companies need to take reasonable measures to protect data and limit access by unauthorized parties.
• Data Minimization and Accuracy – Companies should avoid collecting information they never need or plan to use. While the cost of storage is nominal, the excess information creates data integrity, quality and accuracy problems.

Yahoo! has introduced an eBay application to the “My Applications” dashboard area of the new yahoo.com homepage they’ve been testing since September. Yahoo! began user testing with a random fraction of their user-base in four different countries: U.S.A., United Kingdom, France and India to see what folks would want most out of a next generation Yahoo! homepage.

The “My Applications” dashboard area is a new feature that consolidates some cool online apps (both on and off Yahoo!) for easier access by users. The eBay application is the newest one to be added to the list and Tapan Bhat, of Yahoo!’s Front Doors team has blogged about it over on Yodel Anecdotal (Yahoo!’s corporate blog).

According to Tapan…
Demonstrating how we’re opening our homepage to third-parties to make your life simpler, we’re adding a new eBay application to the “My Applications” dashboard area. It will provide an “eBay Anywhere” experience, letting people quickly monitor their eBay buying and selling activities, including checking recent bids or getting reminders about auctions that are about to close. They can also as search for and find new eBay items right from within Yahoo.com.

Here is a screencast that introduces users to the new homepage. The eBay application preview begins at 1:19.

I don’t know what Yahoo!’s plans are to make this available beyond the user group but will be sure to let folks know once I do.

Cheers,
RBH

Advertising on eBay has come a long way since the first AOL deal 9 years ago. To prove it, later this Fall, eBay will roll out a Beta program for sellers in Germany and the US that will give them another way to increase visibility in the online marketplace. eBay AdCommerce is the latest advertisting optimization tool from VP Matt Ackley’s Internet Marketing team and will allow sellers to take advantage of the 4 billion keywords in eBay’s database.

Beta program participants will be able to pay for search terms and get ads placed directly into existing ad space that is currently served up by Google and Yahoo!*. Essentially, the AdCommerce program will act as another way for good sellers to raise visibility on eBay.

“We wanted to build something dynamically based that actually gives sellers a new tool that will immediately show them positive results,” said Matt Ackley, VP Internet Marketing. “This will represent a much more action-oriented form of advertising for our sellers than straight-up CPM models.”

Click above to view full image

From Caroline Malifoud’s AB post today:
How eBay AdCommerce will work
Let’s say you want your ad to appear when buyers search for “computer.” You would need to decide how much you’re willing to pay each time a buyer would click your ad after running a search for “computer.”

If you’re one of the highest bidders for that keyword, your ad – which can include a title, a short description, plus an optional image – will appear. You can create a campaign for that keyword and set a budget for that campaign.

Your eBay AdCommerce ads will show up near the bottom of the page when a buyer searches for a particular keyword or is browsing in a particular category. Depending on the keyword and the buyer’s purchasing history we will either display eBay AdCommerce, Shopping.com or Yahoo! Ads.

With AdCommerce, there is no up-front fee, and no minimum payment or deposit. Sellers pay only when a buyer clicks your ad and goes to your listing or eBay Store.

For more information, check out the AdCommerce information page.

Cheers,
RBH

*This post has been updated to reflect that the ad space is currently served up by Yahoo! and Google, but not MSN as originally stated in the post.

“We’re very excited that Google has taken this step and is working with us to help protect your online safety,” said Michael Barrett, the chief information security officer for PayPal, in his post to the PayPal blog. “From now on, if you have a Gmail e-mail address, you will see a dramatic reduction in the amount of e-mails which purport to come from PayPal and eBay, but which aren’t in fact from us.”

The full post by Michael Barrett includes links to additional anti-phishing information (including a white paper and video tutorial). Gmail also posted to their blog.

A similar implementation with Yahoo! Mail was announced on the PayPal blog back in October. I have used Yahoo! Mail (http://mail.yahoo.com) for all things eBay/PayPal in the past and I can’t remember the last time an eBay/PayPal spam made it through the filter and into my inbox (I wish I could say the same for pharmaceuticals and/or ladies that apparently really, REALLY want to get in touch with me). The fact that I’m not getting “phished” tells me that something is working and it’s encouraging to see GMail users getting the same kind of attention.

To find out more about how Gmail deals with phishing and spam, check out the following LINK.

eBay also provides insight into preventing spoof emails and websites in its Security & Resolution Center. PayPal does the same in its “Fight Phishing” pages.

Cheers,
RBH