I seriously enjoy reading Ina Steiner. She's the editor of AuctionBytes.com. I like her stuff because she's just so damn objective. She simply lays out the facts and lets you come to your own conclusions. I also like Ina because she continuously holds a very bright light directly at eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY).

Recently, Ina opened the floor at the AuctionBytes blog for discussion about the involvement of Meg Whitman in the Mitt Romney campaign. Needless to say, the situation has raised some eyebrows. Personally, I don't care what direction either Meg or Mitt choose to go. Ina's readers, however, had a very dim view of the situation. My question is, has Meg's insurgence into the political realm affected the shareholders of eBay?

Forget for a moment all the ill conceived plans that eBay has tripped over. Ignore the Skype debacle, the eBay China crash, the silencing of Stubhub and the host of other demons that in my opinion the Whitman crew has set loose, buried or denied. Forget for a moment about all that cash flowing into eBay coffers with nothing better accomplished than to outsource customer service and to pay Whitman's salary. Ignore the wolf at the door in the form of Amazon Inc.(NASDAQ: AMZN). Never mind that eBay has lost its shine and reputation and is yet to pay a dividend to its shareholders. I'm talking about presidential politics and corporate wrangling here.

As reported on Auctionbytes, eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) recently announced an initiative to thwart the listing of counterfeit goods on its auction site. The program will be targeted at a tiny selected group of particular product names. Most probably in reaction to pending litigation by companies such as Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior Couture, this move seems to be a bit of oil targeted at a few squeaky wheels.

The details of the program are obtuse and ill-defined, but in part, the initiative involves a smattering of criteria which when encountered will trigger a red flag and expose a seller to manual inspection of their item listings. Included in the program are new restrictions against the listing of certain items from the countries of China and Hong Kong. While on its face this program seems helpful and reasonable, overall it is an unimpressive effort according to sources who have contacted this writer.

"What an unmitigated load of bull----!" , was the response I received from one associate. She sees this program as nothing more than another stopgap PR play reflective of the same type of flimsy "solution" eBay employed to quiet the Skype overloading of servers issue. In part, the concern is that while this program may indeed reduce the number of attempts to sell a few counterfeit copies of a few specific items, it will do nothing to pursue or prosecute those who are habitually engaged in practices of illegal merchandising on eBay's site.