But then again, look what eBay did to small business. It certainly transformed that. The most urgent problem, Whitman said, is that eBay cannot find one company that produces translation and conversion software for all of the two dozen or so markets it wants to penetrate. Of the companies specializing in language and currency translation, none provides services across Asian, European and other languages. Typically, one software company specializes in Asian languages, providing great translation from Chinese to Japanese to Thai, while another specializes in linking all Western European languages.
Some companies specialize in language translation, while others focus on currency conversion.
Whitman said she would prefer to acquire or partner with a single company to provide all of eBay's translation and conversion needs. Another unwieldy problem involves government regulation of e-commerce sites. Under French law, it is illegal to exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones. Last week, the judge issued a temporary reprieve from restrictions that would bar citizens from accessing Nazi memorabilia on the world's most popular Web portal. But he stipulated that during the next two months, three experts will examine ways of blocking questionable content from Yahoo and Web sites originating in the United States.