I've always assumed her ostensible "usefulness" on the board was potential knowledge/relationships to build out the Offsite Ads product ($$$) with maybe some broader search & AI benefit on the side. Obviously in practice the search/AI piece hasn't really helped much.😂 But ads are a different story. eBay lumps all ad products together in earnings reports, so it's pretty opaque where the ad revenue is really coming from. Anecdotally though, I believe cost per click Offsite ads have the lowest adoption of all the Promoted Listings options. But that's not the only way eBay can earn ad revenue from Google or Bing Shopping. eBay automatically opts sellers who use the Promoted Listings General cost per sale model (by far the most widely adopted) into "external placements" - and most don't opt out. The help page mentions "search engines" but importantly those aren't just ads within a regular Google search, they can also be placements within Google Shopping (or Bing etc.) Note the help page also says "Those ads may preempt other eBay-funded marketing efforts we may take on your behalf." That means if you use PL General & don't opt out of external placement, then your listings are likely not being pushed in eBay's "free" feed to Google Shopping - they're only showing up there because they are enrolled in Promoted Listings. In that case, when the buyer clicks through from Google Shopping & makes the purchase, the seller pays the extra % ad fee on the sale. Obviously I don't think that any of what eBay is doing with ads is actually a positive thing for sellers or the overall long-term health of the business. But from the perspective of the rest of the board, it's not really perplexing that they would think someone with her background could help with their cash-extraction advertising schemes. 😂 So in my opinion, the potential "conflict" isn't really around Google or Bing Shopping being a competitor to eBay - again, arguably they really just provide a platform on which many sites compete, including eBay. But corruption can come in many forms and rather than conflict it could perhaps show up as collusion - ie. eBay, Google, and Bing all milking the same herd of ad revenue cash cows dry. Either way, it's pretty obviously at least just another example of how the board's incentives are not aligned with the best interests of sellers, the broader business or long-term shareholder value.

There’s currently no public disclosure of any direct funding or connections between W & eBay founder turned "philanthropist" Pierre Omidyar. But Zeiter’s background at eBay, combined with W’s ethos, will almost certainly raise questions about his possible influence - especially since Omidyar has a long history of anti-@elonmusk, pro-censorship activity framed as fighting “disinformation.” For example, Omidyar was a major source of funding for "tech accountability" groups behind boycotts & efforts to stop Musk from buying Twitter, according to @influence_watch.