EBay公司并购了一个不错的公司SquareTrade，该公司成立于旧金山，在5年以前就有60,000个卖家在其网站上做生意、在全球120个国家用5种语言进行网上交易的仲裁、还能够对Google上的某些特定病毒做出诊断和处理。

SquareTrade的技术不仅仅能提供价格参照，它还提供多重的商店和渠道服务，并且是第一个购买“助理”，比如提供欺诈侦察和反phishing（也是网络欺诈的一种，就像钓鱼一样欺骗无知网民）技术。因此，将来在eBay买东西的时候，如果遇到欺诈邮件，SquareTrade的技术将会提醒你不要打开那些可疑网页。

另外，在新的技术支持下，消费者可以在语音支持下进行网上拍卖活动。

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 22, 2005

Filed at 7:00 p.m. ET

EBay Inc. has been very, very good to San Francisco-based SquareTrade, which verifies the reliability of sellers on the online auction site -- 60,000 of them since launching five years ago, according to CEO Steve Abernethy.

SquareTrade also arbitrates online transaction disputes, working in five languages and 120 countries.

And it vets Google Adwords -- the keywords advertisers bid on that generate paid listings in the search engine's query results-- for certain drugs. Abernethy says it succeeded in fending off Ukrainian ''pharmacies'' that tried to advertise the powerful prescription-only painkiller Vicodin on Google.

At DEMOfall, the company launched a Web browser sidebar that offers retail price comparisons for competing sites, most richly in consumer electronics.

It works much like SideStep, the travelers' search tool.

But SquareTrade SideBar goes further than providing comparison pricing. It also reviews across multiple stores and channels and, says Abernethy, is the first shopping assistant to include fraud-detection and anti-phishing technology.

So if you get a suspicious e-mail that purports to be from a legitimate online retailer and you click on the included link -- and it's a fraud -- SquareTrade's SideBar will flash with a red alert and refuse to open the suspect Web site.

The sidebar now supports Microsoft's industry-leading Internet Explorer browser but Abernethy promises support for the Firefox browser by year's end.

Another clever service that piggybacks off eBay addresses a vexing issue for enthusiasts of the leading Web auction site.

More than half the bids on eBay auctions are made in their last five minutes, says gNumber Inc.'s chief executive, Indraj Gill.

But who wants to be stuck in front of a computer in those final minutes?

Austin, Texas-based gNumber's solution, a free service called Unwired Buyer, leverages Voice over Internet technology to let you bid using your cell phone.

You register online with gNumber and can choose to receive text messages 15 minutes before an auction ends. And then, three minutes before the bidding closes, a gNumber computer calls you and, through voice prompts, lets you act on the item.