Forget the latest exploits of Britney, Jessica or Paris ? the hottest rumour on the Internet right now is the possibility of Microsoft buying eBay.

The New York Post was the first media outlet to report the possible news, but the move would likely cause anti-trust issues in the States and was quickly rebutted.

The Post said that Microsoft set its sights on eBay after it lost a bid to merge with AOL, which ended up merging with Google instead. So Microsoft turned its attention to eBay and the Yahoo search engine.

Reportedly, Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates is more excited at taking over eBay rather than Yahoo because of its technological capacities.

Although eBay and Microsoft are seen as two very different companies, they share the same nemesis – Google. For Microsoft, Google’s threat is its search capacities. eBay sees a threat in Google due to its online classifieds and the company’s Google Wallet payment system, which is still in development and would be a competitor to Google’s online payment system, PayPal.

Both Microsoft and eBay would not comment on the rumours.






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