Ebay rejects Jajah buttons service

Ebay has pulled the plug on Jajah's plans to let buyers and sellers access its online telephony service through the site.

The internet telephony service provider had announced earlier this week that Ebay sellers who sign up for its service plan could place the Jajah Button on the 'meet the seller' section of the bidding page.

Potential buyers could click on the button and call the seller to ask questions about the item they are interested in. If the sellers accepts the call, the minutes are charged to their Jajah account.

The service connects both parties phone-to-phone and does not require any special hardware or software.

A number of Ebay power sellers had already started using these buttons, however, it was removed overnight by Ebay because it said adding the button: “Violated the Ebay Inappropriate Links policy” as “links or other connections to live chat systems are not permitted.”

However, Jajah hit back at this putting the revolt down to the auction sites difficulties with partner VoIP service Skype.

Roman Scharf, Co-Founder of Jajah, said: “Our vision was simply to bring voice communication to one of the world's greatest marketplaces for eCommerce. With millions of registered users, Jajah is hardly an 'inappropriate' organisation.

"We were seeing great excitement for Jajah buttons on Ebay and we are disappointed that some of our user’s listings are now being removed."

Mr Scharf also said that the buttons “provide trust and safety by safeguarding Ebay Seller IDs while providing enhanced Ebay Buyer information and protection” as owners can set the times they are available to receive calls and which phone they want the calls to go to, without revealing the number.

However, Jajah buttons can still be integrated into websites, blogs, email footers or social-networking pages. To use the buttons a user must first register with Jajah or log into an existing account.

They then follow the button creation wizard which creates the button.

The buttons can also be customised in terns of colour, size and style to match a user’s online identity. Users can also set the time when they are free to accept phone calls and also have the choice of rejecting or blocking numbers.

To change a phone number or availability settings, a user must go back into their button profile.