eBay Australia’s plans to introduce their new ruling making PayPal the only payment option on all auctions/listings has hit a major hurdle.

Just days before eBay Australia was planning to introduce the new rule - on 17th June, 2008 - the ACCC has released a draft notice proposing to revoke eBay’s immunity from Section 47 of the Trade Practices Act. What this means, is that the ACCC isn’t happy about the ‘fairness’ of eBay forcing users to use PayPal.

“Given eBay’s position as Australia’s leading online marketplace, the notified conduct will substantially reduce competition to supply online payment services to users of online marketplaces more generally…the ACCC believes that consumers are in the best position to decide which payment method is most suitable for them” said the ACCC chairman Mr. Graeme Samuel.

So, as from Tuesday (17th June), it won’t be compulsory to only offer PayPal on your eBay listings. This could still change in the future (but it’s highly unlikely) so it would pay to keep an eye on the eBay Australia noticeboard, but for now eBay aren’t allowed to enforce this ruling until a final decision is made by the ACCC.

eBay, & any other interested parties, are now able to lodge submissions in response to the draft notice, before the ACCC decides whether to issue a final notice revoking eBay’s immunity.

You can find out more about the draft notice on the ACCC website or by emailing the Adjudication Branch at adjudication@accc.gov.au.

***UPDATE***

eBay has now stated that they will fight the ACCC proposal (hardly surprising), & have delayed the roll out of their PayPal only plan until July 15th. Personally, I don’t expect anything to happen on July15th though as even though the ACCCs final decision is still pending, it’s very unusual for draft rulings to be changed after they’ve been issued.