At last, eBay CEO Meg Whitman is preparing to leave, the Wall Street Journal reports. It's about time, and even Whitman would agree, having said that no one should stay CEO of a company for more than 10 years. That deadline comes in March, and Tuesday's earnings call are as good a time to tell shareholders as any. Her likely replacement, John Donahoe, won't be much of a change: If he is tapped as CEO, power will be ceremoniously transferred one ex-management consultant to another. Is it any wonder eBay is bleeding risktakers and creative talent?

For the first holiday season ever, more Americans visited Amazon.com than eBay last December, the New York Times reports, citing numbers from Nielsen. eBay still trumped Amazon in time spent, or "engagement," and total pageviews — all of that auction-watching, you know. And it's important to remember that traffic without transactions doesn't do either site any good. But the news can't be a comfort the eBay CEO Meg Whitman, here pictured with Mitt Romney (far left) and some guy.

Amazon will pay the equivalent of $1,500 per day in fines and continue to offer free shipping in France in defiance of a recently imposed court order. The high-minded and socialist-leaning French government passed the 1981 Lang law, which prevents selling books at a discount, to protect small booksellers from the predation of discount supermarkets. How visionary those legislators were to anticipate the coming of Amazon. Hoping to overturn the law, Bezos is trying to muster the support of French cheap-book lovers. But Amazon is unlikely to prevail even with the people's support. The High Court of Versailles is unlikely to appreciate the online book retailer's sense of revolution. Off with their savings!

Valleywag has learned that Amazon.com has invested $4 million in sale-a-day e-commerce site Woot. The deal gives Amazon right of first refusal to buy the company should Woot hit certain unnamed sales targets, want to go public, or sell to another company. For the most part, the companies operate independently. But there's more to Woot, and its ties to Amazon, than meets the eye.

Electronics retailer TigerDirect plans to raise CompUSA from the grave, using its trademarks and a handful of stores to give its own retail presence fresh life. CompUSA went under last month when it was sold to restructuring specialist Gordon Brothers, which is closing most of its stores, including the helpfully located flagship on Market Street in downtown San Francisco, which catered to hordes of Moscone Center convention-goers. If the deal goes through, TigerDirect would pick up the CompUSA brand and website, as well as 16 stores located in Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico — sorry, San Francisco. (Photo by Mary Jane Irwin)

The professor investigating Sears's spyware installation has discovered that the department store is also making it easy to spy on others' home appliance purchases. If you registered at the Sears Manage My Home site, you could view the purchase history of anyone you have a name, phone number, and street address for. No password required. The retailer responded quickly to remove the feature when the news surfaced on the web, but why was such an obvious flaw present in the first place?

Online shoppers spent 19 percent more this holiday season than last year, according to ComScore. It's a big number, but not as big as last year's 26 percent jump. ComScore chairman and chief wonk Gian Fulgoni says you people did a pretty good job considering the "economic challenges facing consumers this year as a result of higher gas prices, lower home values and a jittery stock market." I say suck it up and buy some more free stuff off eBay next year.

Hitwise reports that December 26, also known as Boxing Day, was online shopping's busiest day in the U.K. so far this season. In the U.S., MasterCard says its numbers show post-Christmas shopping accounts for 16 percent of all holiday sales, online and off. One likely reason why, besides post-holiday sales? Gift cards.

It seems that every year is Amazon.com's "best year ever." That's no surprise given that the number of people shopping online is growing every year and a huge number of them shop at the 'zon. Every year, Amazon releases a list of holiday shopping minutiae, including popular items and details of a few interesting shipments. Here are the highlights:

In a $3 million lawsuit against eBay, Tiffany has called the online auction house a "rat's nest" of counterfeit goods. Maybe the blue-boxed retailer is grumpy because Tiffany had to send eBay 135,000 takedown notices in 2006. As Eric Goldman points out on his Technology & Marketing Law Blog, that's 370 notices per day, 15 an hour, or 1 every 4 minutes. The suit itself, by the way, basically comes down to who should pay for investigating counterfeiting claims; eBay says Tiffany could fix the problem by hiring one more paralegal.

In 2007, online holiday shopping rose 20 percent over last year. And "Green Monday" — the day on which e-commerce sales peaked at $881 million, beat out "Cyber Monday" and "Black Friday" for most ridiculous made-up holiday shopping day. Cyber Monday spending came in at $734 million and Black Friday didn't even make comScore's top ten list. Neither day was available for comment.

Facebook is looking for platform developers to test a payments system, an administrator announced on the Facebook Developers forum. Details are scant, but it's more likely than not built on the micropayments software Facebook developed for its virtual gifts. (Which, by the way, is a brilliant Trojan horse strategy: Charge people a token amount for something that costs you nothing, and get their credit-card numbers while you're at it.) The good news for the rest of us is that the new payment system might mean we'll see some Facebook apps that are meant to do something besides show us ads while we goof off.

Why the frenzy of end-of-year redesigns at Google? Last week we noticed that Google was launching a new sidebar with Video and Products results. This evening, Google changed the "Products" button on its home page and search result pages to "Shopping."

Like thousands of people around the world right now, Mark Jackson is peeved at eBay about some purchase gone sour. A Nintendo DS Lite, to be precise. Jackson was so peeved that he sent an email to several U.K. press outlets, copying eBay and demanding a response. This is only notable because Jackson is a high-ranking executive at Hill and Knowlton. And eBay does business with Hill and Knowlton all around the world — but substantially cut its budget in the last month. Here's Jackson's screed — and more about its curious timing.

Maybe Jeff Bezos does have a hit on its hands. TechCrunch notes that the sold-out Amazon Kindle is selling for up to $1,500 on eBay. Didn't these people skim Robert Scoble's review of the e-book reader? Or Walt Mossberg's slam? Both say the thing's a piece of crap. For the same $1,500 you can buy a well-equipped MacBook, or almost four iPhones. When the thing first came out, I considered buying one, but didn't think it was worth $400. I guess I was wrong. At these prices, it's practically the new Nintendo Wii.

Those beautiful days of sipping tea along the Garonne whilst ordering books that will arrive in a week's time, free of charge, are over. The high court in Versailles has forbidden Amazon.com to offer free shipping after the French Bookseller's Union threw a fit of Gallic rage, claiming the Web retailer was offering an "illegal discount on books." Woe to free markets. Amazon has 10 days to end gratis shipping before the French court imposes a daily $1,462 fine. Jeff Bezos is also stuck giving a not-so-secret Santa of $146,158 to the booksellers.

Amazon.com has taken a minority stake in Bill Me Later, according to reports. Why? Likely, it has something to do with the 217 percent year-over-year increase in traffic to BillMeLater.com, where users sign up for new accounts. As part of the deal, Amazon will join Wal-Mart and Overstock.com in adding Bill Me Later as an online payment option.

Consumer spending online from January through October increased 21 percent over the same period last year. So far, despite a raucous Black Friday and Cyber Monday, holiday spending hasn't matched that growth, up only 17 percent over last year. Still, ComScore sees that trend correcting itself over the next couple of weeks, forecasting this year's holiday spend at 20 percent over last year. Here are the charts.

MoveOn.org, the activist group, takes credit for Facebook revising its privacy policy. The company itself says it was just listening to user feedback. But you know better: Money talks. The New York Times reports that prior to Facebook's announcement last night, at least one advertiser, Overstock.com, told Zuckerberg & Co. it would discontinue its participation in Facebook's Beacon ads until it became an opt-in-only program, where users have to actively consent to have their purchases broadcasted to friends on the social network. It's not clear if Facebook's latest changes have appeased the online retailer.

Valleywag's favorite dancer, Mark Cuban, is sashaying to enter the crowded market of Facebook applications with Radical Buy. Radical Buy is not radically different from other venues for selling goods, like eBay or Facebook's own Marketplace. Cuban's approach is distinguished in one significant way: The application introduces commissions to those who display other people's listings and help close sales. By providing even nonsellers with a chance to make money, Radical Buy hopes to get uptake beyond a small audience of Cuban followers.