See this news link below...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030707/engle

In that article is the following paragraph ...

In the fall of 2001 a Stanford-educated Pakistani scientist, a permanent resident of the United States, was visited at his home in the Bay Area by the FBI, who asked about several books he'd recently purchased on eBay. The man's lawyer said the FBI agent reported having been alerted by eBay. eBay denied having provided the information to the FBI, and the bureau refused to comment.

Note that according to that account, Ebay alerted the FBI not the other way around. In essance Ebay is acting as a quasi-law enforcement agency, as the above article explains.

I wasn't able to find them, but I recall seeing some press releases by Ebay / PayPal in which they tout how they go out of their way to assist law enforcement.

If still not convinced ... read Ebay's privacy policy, terms of use, etc ... just the length alone should make one cringe ... last I read, their agreements all together is something of upwards of 40,000 words! Note the various links in their agreement pointing to other agreements ... clicking all around is an oddssey in and of itself ... set aside a decent part of a day to read through all it.

Often the longer a terms of use / privacy policy is, the more tilted it is towards the company; less rights / less privacy for the user.

Ron