Online auction sellers, take notice. The IRS may start asking eBay and other auction sites to report the gross sales their users make each year. People are supposed to report the income they earn from their online sales, and the IRS thinks not everyone may be doing so. The San Francisco Chronicle said President Bush wants to have the definition of “broker” expanded to cover sites like eBay. As of today, online auction sites don’t fall under that definition. One big group of eBay sellers, the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, isn’t worried. Their marketing chairman, David Yaskulka, said, “Every professional seller I’ve ever talked to pays their taxes and has no problem with anyone finding out about the level of business they’re doing.”

Advertisers love the idea of having their marketing appear in video and mobile search. But many of them aren’t willing to pay a premium price for it. A new survey by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization said that two out of five marketers want to pay the same for video ads as they do for traditional search advertising. Mobile ads have less appeal right now, with more than half of those surveyed saying they will not pay a premium for them. Kevin Lee, member of the Board of Directors of SEMPO and chair of its Research Committee, compared video and mobile advertising to the early years of cable TV and pay per click ads. Once upon a time, no one wanted to buy those either.

Google has had its ups and down in South Korea. They have been slowly gaining more users for their search and Gmail services in the country. Google has gained much more attention from the Korean government’s Fair Trade Commission, which recently told Google to change a number of clauses in its AdSense contract. Those clauses violate fair trade laws in Korea, like one that allows Google to refuse participation to any AdSense network member at any time at Google’s whim. Google’s office in South Korea told the Commission they will revise the offending clauses. The country has a fast-growing online ad market that should top one billion dollars in spending this year, and Google does not want to be shut out of that.

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