WSJ speculates that a change in wording in eBay's latest SEC filing may be in anticipation of a possible antitrust investigation. eBay has added this language to their most recent SEC filing:

"Third parties or governmental agencies may view our behavior as anti-competitive. Third parties have in the past and may in the future allege that actions taken by us violate the antitrust or competition laws of the U.S or other countries, or otherwise constitute unfair competition. Such claims typically are very expensive to defend, involve negative publicity and diversion of management time and effort and could result in significant judgment against us, all of which would adversely affect us.

"Should the Department of Justice or any other antitrust agency open other investigations of our activities, we would likely be harmed by negative publicity, the costs of the action, possible private antitrust lawsuits, the diversion of management time and effort and penalties we might suffer if we ultimately were not to prevail."

According to the WSJ article, an eBay spokesperson said that it was, "not uncommon for the company to update such language from quarter to quarter in anticipation of "challenges."" Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2001 (Must be paid subscriber to access WSJ Online)