The blogosphere lit up with speculation this past weekend over a post that supposedly appeared on the Official Google Blog that said Google was bowing out of click-to-call. Google had entered into a multi-year agreement with eBay in August involving text-based advertising and "click-to-call" advertising functionality (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m08/i28/s00).

Google has become the exclusive text-based advertising provider for eBay outside the United States, and eBay has a similar arrangement with Yahoo in the United States (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m05/i25/s03).

WebProNews first wrote about the rumor in an article published on Saturday (http://digbig.com/4ngab). And on Sunday, it revealed that while the post did appear on the Google blog, it was in fact a hoax (http://digbig.com/4ngac).

John Battelle of SearchBlog.com wrote on Sunday, "Is Google Axing Click to Call? Nope, But Whoever Runs Blog Security Might Have His Head On The Block..." (http://battellemedia.com/archives/002960.php).

In dispelling the rumor, Google disclosed that the click-to-call test "is progressing on schedule," and Google is "pleased with the results thus far" (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/about-that-fake-post.html).