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PART I
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of
the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements that involve
expectations, plans or intentions (such as those relating to future business or financial results, new features or
services, or management strategies). You can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as “may,”
“will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan” and other
similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual
results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Such risks and
uncertainties include, among others, those discussed in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” of this Annual Report on Form
10-K, as well as in our consolidated financial statements, related notes, and the other financial information
appearing elsewhere in this report and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC.
We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update any of our forward-looking statements after the date of
this report to reflect actual results or future events or circumstances. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers
are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.
ITEM 1: BUSINESS
Overview
eBay Inc. was formed as a sole proprietorship in September 1995 and was incorporated in California in May
1996. In April 1998, we reincorporated in Delaware, and in September 1998, we completed the initial public
offering of our common stock. Our principal executive offices are located at 2145 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose,
California 95125, and our telephone number is (408) 376-7400. When we refer to “we,” “our,” “us” or “eBay” in
this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we mean the current Delaware corporation (eBay Inc.) and its California
predecessor, as well as all of its consolidated subsidiaries. When we refer to “eBay.com,” we mean the online
marketplace located at www.ebay.com and its localized counterparts. When we refer to “PayPal,” we mean the
online payments platform located at www.paypal.com and its localized counterparts. When we refer to “Skype,”
we mean the Internet communications offerings provided by Skype Technologies S.A., which we sold in
November 2009.
Our purpose is to pioneer new communities around the world built on commerce, sustained by trust and
inspired by opportunity. We bring together millions of buyers and sellers every day on a local, national and
international basis through an array of websites. We provide online marketplaces for the sale of goods and
services as well as other online commerce, or ecommerce, platforms and online payment solutions to a diverse
community of individuals and businesses.
We have two business segments: Marketplaces and Payments. Our Marketplaces segment provides the
infrastructure to enable global online commerce on a variety of platforms, including the eBay.com platform and
our other online platforms, such as our online classifieds businesses, our secondary tickets marketplace
(StubHub), our online shopping comparison website (Shopping.com), our apartment listing service platform
(Rent.com) and our fixed price media marketplace (Half.com). Our Payments segment consists of our online
payment solutions PayPal and Bill Me Later. Historically, we also had a Communications segment that consisted
of Skype Technologies S.A. (“Skype”). On November 19, 2009, we sold Skype to an investor group for cash, a
subordinated note and an equity stake in the outstanding capital stock of the Skype successor entity (now
approximately 30%).
We generate two types of net revenues: (1) net transaction revenues and (2) marketing services and other
revenues. Our net transaction revenues are derived principally from listing fees and final value fees (which are
fees payable on transactions completed on our Marketplaces trading platforms), fees paid by merchants for
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