The news hitting the wire yesterday seemed benign enough. Narus Inc. secured $30 million in new funding with the purpose of further development and sales.

Anyone unfamiliar with Narus or anyone not taking the time to read this more carefully may not realize what implications this can have. Narus is a technology firm. It makes networks that can monitor phone and Internet traffic. Sounds harmless? Well, Narus' technology can help sift through information to find specific data on Web surfers, anything from emails to habits and calls made over the Internet.

The purposes of such monitoring can be vast. One purpose is similar to wiretapping. In fact, according to news sources, President Bush's administration used Narus in the controversial monitoring of Americans without warrants.

Another purpose is, instead of monitoring calls made over the Internet, blocking such calls from being made. The Chinese phone company, state controlled, and a few other countries with state-owned or controlled phone companies have also contracted Narus to help block VoIP usage.

For eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), this spells trouble. Skype is especially popular in China and if eBay were to make it in the Chinese market, Skype would be a big part of its strategy there. Of course, we still have to wait and see how this plays out, but it is definitely something to watch out for.

Could Narus block eBay's Chinese aspirations? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 31 Oct 2006 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.