According the newly-released Nielsen scores and this article from the New York Times, Amazon.com has surpassed eBay in holiday shopping traffic for the first time (by a mere 250,000 visits).  eBay had a total of 59,374,000 visitors during the month of December, while Amazon had 59,624,000.

One alarming finding, however, is that eBay's total holiday visitors dropped 10% from 2006, which caused Media journalists and bloggers alike to point to the root causes.

Here are some of the reasons they are citing:

Customer Service

- Amazon upgraded their interface while eBay's has been the same for awhile now, and Amazon tends to have better product descriptions & recommendations.  This all amounts to a better customer experience.

- eBay has more pageviews per visitor than Amazon, suggesting that Amazon visitors find what they are looking for more quickly and with less clicks.

- eBay's customer-service process is notoriously horrible, while Amazon's is amazingly good.

- eBay has recently made some moves that have further strained its relationships with sellers, while Amazon has found ways to solve their pain points

- (for example....)  eBay Sellers pay a fee to list an item if it is doesn't sell.  Amazon's Seller Marketplace (competitor to eBay) doesn't charge sellers to list an item, and instead charges a flat 15% commission when they sell (NOTE:  Amazon's fees end up being 3% higher than eBay's, but it appears sellers are willing to absorb that cost in exchange for what they see as better service).

Fraud on eBay is still a problem. 

- Fraud affecting both buyers and sellers has continued to grow on eBay at alarming rates while Amazon's more controlled transaction flow prevents fraud.

- The negative-feedback system on eBay which was designed to protect & inform buyers actually doesn't work because good buyers are hesitant to give negative feedback to a bad seller in fear that the seller might retaliate and leave bad feedback in return.

- It is difficult to report fraud to eBay.  For example, you can report a fraudulent eBay auction to MatrixWatch.com in two clicks.  But for eBay Safe Harbor, it takes up to 15.

All this being said, I'm still a big fan of eBay.  Afterall, MatrixWatch.com was founded to raise consumer confidence on the internet (and especially on sites like eBay), by developing tools to keep buyers safe from fraud.  It'll be a long year for eBay, but an interesting one to watch.

In a developement that comes as little surprise to the anti-fraud community, popular social-networking site Phishbook Facebook has been targeted by phishing scammers.  MatrixWatch users quickly reported the phishing site to the Watchlist, and it eventually became the top voted scam of the day.

The story appears to have first appeard on January 2nd on Scott Fish's blog (irony?).  It was soon picked up by TechCrunch that same day, and then Wired News ran a story about it on January 3rd. 

The scam appears as an enticing message in a user's comments: 

lol i cant believe these pics got posted….its going to be BADDDD when her boyfriend sees these- h--p://www.facebook.com.profile.php.id.371233.cn

The linked site brings up a faux Facebook login page (the URL makes "371233.cn" the rogue domain name).  The seeminly legitimiate login screen is used to hijack a user's account data.  As always if you see one of these phishing sites, report it to our Watchlist so that other users can stay safe online.

UPDATE:  One of our user's reported that the site no longer appears as of 6.12am on January 6th, 2008.

We've received a few emails this week from people who are new to our site, asking about how MatrixWatch works.  Here's a quick overview:

• Internet users (especially eBay members) come to MatrixWatch to report suspicious auctions or websites (including phishing sites).

• Other MatrixWatch members "flag" the reported site if they agree, and leave comments if needed. 

• Before other consumers buy from a website or eBay seller, they check MatrixWatch to see if the site or auction has been reported.  The more flags a reported site or auction has, the more likely the threat.

• The more people use MatrixWatch, the more opportunity we have to keep you safe!

 The positive results include:

1. Stronger collaboration between those who know about fraud and those who need to be warned before they get sucked in. 

2. Better consolidation of opinions and information that previously existed in fragments around the web.

3. Information about internet fraud reaches consumers faster than it would through other channels.