eBay shunning Canadians, French, etc?

Factual Questions
1

I recently heard a brief snippet on the local news about eBay refusing bids from countries that aren’t supporting a U.S. war on Iraq.

Apparently folks placing bids have gotten a message saying that the website is not accepting bids from France, Canada, and other countries that don’t endorse the action. According to the report that I heard (way in the background) eBay has been advised to reverse this policy.

“Freedom fries” or not, this report really taxes my credulity. Is there any substance to it? Online news sources don’t seem to support it-- although a Google news search returns a hit for a National Post story headlined “US rejects French Cognac . . . and Canadians on eBay”, (as of 13 hours ago) the story to which the link leads has since been edited so that the headline reads simply “US rejects French Cognac,” and there is no mention of eBay.

What’s the deal here? Did this really happen? Was it made up out of whole cloth? Or somewhere in-between? (Maybe a jingoistic hack?)

2

Oh yeah, reportedly, part of the message folks have reported receiving is “You’re either with us or against us.” Confirmation or debunking of this would be appreciated, too.

3

eBay France seems to be up and running well. Sounds like a nasty rumor to me.

4

Switched my country to France. Placed a bid. Successful.

5

I saw the story repeated on the evening news – it appears to be a case of a single vendor refusing bids from certain countries. (I didn’t know that was even possible… I’m not an eBay user…) The weird thing is, the vendor seems to focus on Americana, pins, buttons, bumper-stickers, etc.

Misguided, but hardly newsworthy.

6

If you’re the seller, it’s quite easy to cancel bids and block them from bidding again. You also get access to their e-mail, so it’s possible to send them an ignorant message.