eBay CEO John Donahoe told retailers gathered at the National Retail Federation's annual Shop.org summit in Las Vegas this week that the Skype deal will go through despite legal problems with the company's original founders. In a question-and-answer segment with Patti Freeman Evans, Vice President and Research Director at Forrester Research, he said, "We don't regret Skype one bit."

Mr. Donahoe said that eBay had believed Skype would facilitate connecting buyers and sellers, that eBay sellers would say "Skype Me" on their listings, that you would "Skype" money using PayPal. He said it turned out Skype's highest use was as a communications tool.

Mr. Donahoe also told Shop.org attendees that there were still synergies between PayPal and eBay, but "If and when I feel the businesses are better off separately, we'll do what we did with Skype."

Mr. Donahoe also talked about eBay's core values, and said, "we thought auctions was a religion. Auctions are nothing more than a format."

Visit the AuctionBytes blog for links to additional video clips of Mr. Donahoe's presentation at Shop.org and to comment on this story.