my thoughts (Score 1)

This is pretty crazy. EBay should appreciate the business that will be generated through the indexing services; from my understanding, most of their income comes from the slice that they take from each sale.

Would it be illegal for me to advertise one of my EBay auctions on Usenet? (I know it would be annoying unless on alt.forsale...) Then would Dejanews be breaking the law by finding my advertisement for someone?

I think of the Internet as a public forum. Everything posted on non-secure sites should be available for linking and searching. The web is compelling because there is so much information linked and searchable. These lawsuits are setting dangerous precedents.

I do see a problem with commandeering someone else's content and then putting your own banners around it. That is different than what (most) search engines do.