UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

☒ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019.

OR

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the Transition Period from             to             .

Commission file number 001-37713

eBay Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware			77-0430924
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)			(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)
2025 Hamilton Avenue
San Jose	,	California	95125
(Address of principal executive offices)			(Zip Code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:

(408) 376-7008

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of each class	Trading symbol	Name of exchange on which registered
Common stock	EBAY	The Nasdaq Global Select Market
6.00% Notes due 2056	EBAYL	The Nasdaq Global Select Market
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.     Yes ☒  No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes ☐  No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒  No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).  Yes ☒  No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Large accelerated filer	☒	Accelerated filer	☐
Non-accelerated filer	☐	Smaller reporting company	☐
		Emerging growth company	☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).   Yes  ☐  No  ☒

As of June 30, 2019, the aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was $31,354,367,947 based on the closing sale price as reported on The Nasdaq Global Select Market.

796,080,826 shares of common stock issued and outstanding as of January 27, 2020.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Part III incorporates information by reference from the definitive proxy statement for the registrant’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders expected to be held on June 16, 2020.

eBay Inc.

Form 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

		Page
Part I
Item 1.	Business	4
Item 1A.	Risk Factors	10
Item 1B.	Unresolved Staff Comments	29
Item 2.	Properties	30
Item 3.	Legal Proceedings	31
Item 4.	Mine Safety Disclosures	32
Part II
Item 5.	Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	33
Item 6.	Selected Financial Data	35
Item 7.	Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	37
Item 7A.	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk	57
Item 8.	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	59
Item 9.	Changes in and Disagreements With Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	59
Item 9A.	Controls and Procedures	59
Item 9B.	Other Information	59
Part III
Item 10.	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	60
Item 11.	Executive Compensation	60
Item 12.	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	60
Item 13.	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	60
Item 14.	Principal Accountant Fees and Services	60
Part IV
Item 15.	Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedule	61
Item 16.	Form 10-K Summary	61

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PART I

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements that involve expectations, plans or intentions (such as those relating to future business, future results of operations or financial condition, new or planned features or services, management strategies or timing and other expectations regarding our sale of StubHub to viagogo). You can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as “may,” “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan” and other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, those discussed in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as in our consolidated financial statements, related notes, and the other information appearing elsewhere in this report and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update any of our forward-looking statements after the date of this report to reflect actual results or future events or circumstances. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

ITEM 1: BUSINESS

Overview

eBay Inc. was formed as a sole proprietorship in September 1995 and was incorporated in California in May 1996. In April 1998, we reincorporated in Delaware, and in September 1998, we completed the initial public offering of our common stock. Our principal executive offices are located at 2025 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, California 95125, and our telephone number is (408) 376-7008. Unless otherwise expressly stated or the context otherwise requires, when we refer to “we,” “our,” “us” or “eBay” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we mean eBay Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries. When we refer to “eBay Inc.” we mean our Marketplace, StubHub and Classifieds platforms. On November 24, 2019, we entered into a definitive agreement for eBay to sell StubHub to viagogo, with closing of the transaction expected to occur in the first quarter of 2020.

eBay Inc. is a global commerce leader, which includes our Marketplace, StubHub and Classifieds platforms. Collectively, we connect millions of buyers and sellers around the world, empowering people and creating opportunity. Our technologies and services are designed to give buyers choice and a breadth of relevant inventory and to enable sellers worldwide to organize and offer their inventory for sale, virtually anytime and anywhere. Our Marketplace platforms include our online marketplace located at www.ebay.com, its localized counterparts, including off-platform businesses in Korea, Japan and Turkey and the eBay suite of mobile apps. We believe that these are among the world’s largest and most vibrant marketplaces for discovering great value and unique selection. StubHub platforms include the online ticket platform located at www.stubhub.com, its localized counterparts and the StubHub mobile apps. These platforms connect fans with their favorite sporting events, shows and artists and enable them to buy and sell millions of tickets annually, whenever and wherever they want. Our Classifieds platforms include a collection of brands such as mobile.de, Kijiji, Gumtree, Marktplaats, eBay Kleinanzeigen and others. Offering online classifieds around the world, these platforms help people find what they are looking for in their local communities.

Our platforms are accessible through a traditional online experience (e.g., desktop and laptop computers), mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets) and our application programming interfaces or APIs (platform access for third party software developers). Our multi-screen approach offers downloadable, easy-to-use applications for iOS and Android mobile devices that allow access to ebay.com and some of our other websites and vertical shopping experiences. Our platform is increasingly based on open source technologies that provide industry-standard ways for software developers and merchants to access our APIs and develop software and solutions for commerce. In 2019, we launched new API capabilities to give third-party developers access to eBay programs like managed payments.

Agreement to Sell StubHub

On November 24, 2019, following a strategic review of our assets, we entered into a definitive agreement to sell StubHub to viagogo for a purchase price of $4.05 billion in cash. Please see the information in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” under the caption “The closing of the proposed sale of StubHub is subject to various risks and uncertainties, may not be completed in accordance with expected plans or on the currently contemplated timeline, or at all, and the pending sale may be disruptive to StubHub.”

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Our Strategy

Delivering the best choice, the most relevance and the most powerful selling platform

Our strategy is to drive the best choice, the most relevance and the most powerful selling platform for our buyers and sellers. We focus on connecting buyers and sellers through simplified experiences to make it easier for users to list, buy and sell items, and we are working to serve our customers in an authentically eBay way.

On our Marketplace platform, our strategy is to drive the best choice by attracting and retaining sellers and brands that bring differentiated inventory to eBay and provide our consumers with great selection and value. This includes new, everyday items as well as rare and unique goods, many of which are available with free shipping and delivery in three business days or less. Our vision is to provide buyers with value and selection through the spectrum of value of the inventory. We continue to invest in product and initiatives to evolve the customer experience, making it easier for buyers to find inventory on the platform.

As a trusted ticket marketplace, StubHub brings the joy of live events to fans globally. In 2019, over 268 million visitors came to StubHub to buy or sell tickets to live sports, music, theater and other events. StubHub business partners include more than 100 leagues, teams, venues, events or other major third-party companies in the U.S. and internationally across major sports leagues such as the NFL, MLB, MLS, NBA, NHL, and the NCAA. StubHub is a leader in mobile innovation, with roughly 60% of its orders coming from mobile in 2019.

A world leader in online classifieds, eBay Classifieds is designed to help people list their products and services, generally for free, find what they are looking for in their local communities and trade at a local level. eBay Classifieds Group’s brands offer both horizontal and vertical experiences, such as motors, real estate and jobs. We offer a personalized classifieds experience and focus on expanding our value proposition by leveraging data and analytics to improve customer relevance and grow the classifieds opportunity on mobile.

Business model and pricing

On eBay and StubHub, our business model and pricing are designed so that our business is successful primarily when our sellers are successful. We make money primarily through fees collected on successfully closed sales. On our Classifieds platform, we monetize our business primarily through advertising.

In 2019, managed payments adoption accelerated in the U.S. and the service launched in Germany. Since we began intermediating payments in 2018, we processed over $2.0 billion in payments for nearly 25,000 sellers through December 31, 2019. Our advertising business remains focused on growing our promoted listing fees (first-party advertising business) while reducing non-strategic third-party advertising in a manner that is conducive to growth in our core Marketplace; over 1 million sellers used the product, promoting over 320 million live listings in 2019.

Our offerings for buyers and sellers

We provide a number of features for our buyers and sellers that are designed to build trust, help users feel more comfortable buying and selling on our platforms and reward our top sellers for their loyalty. We believe that, through our sellers, eBay offers some of the best value and deals available for a number of consumer products. Buyers seek out eBay because they can find an enormous breadth of inventory and a spectrum of value from the brand new to the hard-to-find.

On the Marketplace platform, we continue to explore new tools and features that are intended to create a better buying experience on eBay, including Visual Shopping via Computer Vision, Right Offer at the Right Time, and Buy Again.

In order to remain competitive and create a vibrant seller experience, eBay continuously invests in tools and programs to grow the seller ecosystem because we only win when our sellers succeed. In 2019, we added analytics and merchandising tools to our Seller Hub that are designed so that sellers know what to sell, when to sell it and at what price. The 2019 additions of Multi-User Account Access, along with the Terapeak integration, enable sellers to better manage their business and add additional analytics insights into the platform. We also established new seller protections, including two new financial protections for top-rated sellers located in the U.S. who offer 30-day returns. First, eBay will issue a seller invoice credit to cover return label cost if a buyer makes a false “item not as described”

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claim. Second, eBay now allows these sellers to issue partial refunds for all items that are returned damaged. eBay also has processes that allow sellers to report buyers who violate policies.

eBay is committed to maintaining a safe and trusted marketplace. In order to further strengthen our buyers’ confidence and trust in our services, we offer eBay Money Back Guarantee, which allows buyers to get their money back if the item they ordered does not arrive, is faulty or damaged, or if it does not match the listing. eBay Money Back Guarantee covers most items purchased on the eBay platform in a number of countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Australia, through a qualifying payment method. Some purchases, including some vehicles, are not covered. We also offer eBay Authenticate, through which sellers can have their high-end handbags, luxury watches and jewelry authenticated. The program is available in the United States as well as in the U.K. and Germany. We also provide our customers with a Best Price Guarantee, which offers buyers in the United States 110 percent of the price difference if they find an item for less on a competitor’s website within 48 hours of making a purchase. In Australia, Best Price Guarantee beats deals from approved retailers by 5%, and in U.K., offers price matching.

For buyers, we want to create greater confidence in our ability to meet their delivery and buying expectations and to improve the reliability of our shipping times and tracking. The majority of our transactions on the eBay Marketplace in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany include free shipping, and we encourage sellers to offer free returns. Through eBay Guaranteed Delivery, we provide faster and more precise delivery dates on millions of eligible items.

Our Impact and Responsibility

eBay’s purpose is to empower people and create economic opportunity for all. Every day, people build businesses on eBay, and we are driven to support them. Both in our community and through our technology, we work to create economic opportunity. Our impact efforts are divided into four programs that align with our purpose: eBay for Charity, eBay Foundation, Retail Revival, and Responsible Business.

eBay for Charity empowers eBay buyers and sellers to support charities around the world. Since its inception, eBay for Charity has raised more than $1 billion for more than 83,000 charities.

eBay’s Foundation helps build economically vibrant and thriving communities through several key initiatives like Global Give, which is an annual employee-led grantmaking program that deploys the talents and passions of eBay employees. Through the program, employees come together to create teams, partner with local nonprofits, and develop projects that support small businesses and entrepreneurs in their communities. In 2019, the eBay Foundation awarded approximately $1 million through Global Give.

Retail Revival, which launched in early 2018, also demonstrates eBay’s commitment to economic development and entrepreneurialism. Retail Revival empowers local businesses to compete on a global scale and thrive in an online economy. In close partnership with local governments and stakeholders, eBay onboards cohorts of small businesses and supports their growth through months of in-depth training, individual coaching, and promotional support, all provided at no cost to the participants or partner cities. Since launch, eBay has welcomed new U.S. cities to the Retail Revival program, including: Lansing, Michigan; Greensboro, North Carolina; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and scaled the program internationally to Canada, the UK, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Russia, and Bulgaria.

Finally, as a part of the company’s Responsible Business efforts, eBay strives to operate in an environmentally and socially sustainable way - creating a safe, trusted, and diverse environment in which our employees, buyers, sellers, suppliers, and partners can thrive. In 2019, eBay made several partnership announcements, working to reach its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025. This includes two local renewable energy programs with energy providers in Draper, Utah, and San Jose, California. These two locations join Dreilinden, Germany; Dublin, Ireland; and Portland, Oregon in 100% renewable energy sourcing.

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Financial Information

We measure our footprint in our addressable market according to Gross Merchandise Volume (“GMV”). GMV consists of the total value of all successfully closed transactions between users on our Marketplace or StubHub platforms during the applicable period, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually completed the transaction. In 2019, we generated over $90 billion in GMV, of which approximately 60 percent was generated outside the U.S. Despite GMV’s divergence from revenue during 2019, we still believe that GMV provides a useful measure of the overall volume of closed transactions that flow through our platforms in a given period, notwithstanding the inclusion in GMV of closed transactions that are not ultimately consummated.

At the end of 2019, our Marketplace and StubHub platforms had more than 180 million active buyers and over one billion live listings globally. The term “active buyer” means, as of any date, all buyer accounts that successfully closed a transaction on our Marketplace or StubHub platforms within the previous 12-month period. Buyers may register more than once and, as a result, may have more than one account.

We generate revenue primarily from the transactions we successfully enable and through marketing services, including classifieds and our growth initiatives of payments and advertising. The majority of our revenue comes from a take rate on the GMV of transactions closed on our Marketplace and StubHub platforms. We define “take rate” as net transaction revenues divided by GMV.

The size and scale of our platforms are designed to enable our buyers and sellers to leverage our economies of scale and capital investments, such as in sales and marketing, mobile, customer acquisition, technology innovation and customer service.

Notable Business Transactions in 2019

We regularly review and manage our investments to ensure that they support eBay’s strategic direction and complement our disciplined approach to value creation, profitability and capital allocation. In the first quarter of 2019, we completed the acquisition of Motors.co.uk, a U.K.-based classifieds site, for $93 million. The Motors.co.uk team joined Gumtree UK, an eBay Classifieds business. In the second quarter of 2019, we invested $160 million in Paytm Mall, an eCommerce marketplace in India. In the fourth quarter of 2019, we entered into a definitive agreement to sell StubHub; see “Agreement to Sell StubHub” section for more details.

Competition

We encounter vigorous competition in our business from numerous sources. Our users can list, sell, buy, and pay for similar items through a variety of competing online, mobile and offline channels. These include, but are not limited to, retailers, distributors, liquidators, import and export companies, auctioneers, catalog and mail-order companies, classifieds, directories, search engines, commerce participants (consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business), shopping channels and networks. As our product offerings continue to broaden into new categories of items and new commerce formats, we expect to face additional competition from other online, mobile and offline channels for those new offerings. We compete on the basis of price, product selection and services, and global scale.

For more information regarding risks of competition, see the information in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” under the captions “Substantial and increasingly intense competition worldwide in ecommerce may harm our business” and “We are subject to regulatory activity and antitrust litigation under competition laws that could adversely impact our business.”

To compete effectively, we will need to continue to expend significant resources in technology and marketing. These efforts require substantial expenditures, which could reduce our margins and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial position, operating results and cash flows and reduce the market price of our common stock and outstanding debt securities. Despite our efforts to preserve and expand the size, diversity and transaction activity of our buyers and sellers and to enhance the user experience, we may not be able to effectively manage our operating expenses, to increase or maintain our revenue or to avoid a decline in our consolidated net income or a net loss.

Government Regulation

Government regulation impacts key aspects of our business. In particular, we are subject to laws and regulations that affect the ecommerce industry in many countries where we operate. With the continued state adoption of Internet

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sales tax laws in 2019, more buyers across the U.S. are encountering sales tax for the first time on the eBay platform. To date, more than 30 states have implemented Internet sales tax and digital service tax legislation. Tax collection responsibility and the additional costs associated with complex sales and use tax collection, remittance and audit requirements could create additional burdens for buyers and sellers on our websites and mobile platforms.

For more information regarding regulatory risks, see the information in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” under the caption “Our business is subject to extensive government regulation and oversight” and “Our business and its users are subject to Internet sales tax and sales reporting and record-keeping obligations.”

Seasonality

We expect transaction activity patterns on our platforms to mirror general consumer buying patterns. Please see the additional information in “Item 7: Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” under the caption “Seasonality.”

Technology

eBay Inc.’s platforms use a combination of proprietary technologies and services as well as technologies and services provided by others. We have developed intuitive user interfaces, buyer, seller and developer tools and transaction processing, database and network applications that help enable our users to reliably and securely complete transactions on our sites. Our technology infrastructure simplifies the storage and processing of large amounts of data, eases the deployment and operation of large-scale global products and services and automates much of the administration of large-scale clusters of computers. Our infrastructure has been designed around industry-standard architectures to reduce downtime in the event of outages or catastrophic occurrences.

For information regarding technology-related risks, see the information in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” under the captions “Systems failures or cyberattacks and resulting interruptions in the availability of or degradation in the performance of our websites, applications, products or services could harm our business” and “Regulation in the areas of privacy and protection of user data could harm our business.”

In support of our ongoing commitment to innovation and a better customer experience, we have been on a multi-year evolution to modernize our marketplace. Through technologies like artificial intelligence, which is woven into all aspects of the eBay marketplace, we are anticipating the needs of buyers, sellers and developers empowering entrepreneurs looking to grow their business, and making the platform more accessible to everyone. We aim to create highly personalized and inspiring shopping experiences powered by advanced technologies.

Intellectual Property

We regard the protection of our intellectual property, including our trademarks (particularly those covering the eBay name), patents, copyrights, domain names, trade dress and trade secrets as critical to our success. We aggressively protect our intellectual property rights by relying on federal, state and common law rights in the U.S. and internationally, as well as a variety of administrative procedures. We also rely on contractual restrictions to protect our proprietary rights in products and services. We routinely enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and contractors and nondisclosure agreements with parties with whom we conduct business to limit access to and disclosure of our proprietary information.

We pursue the registration of our domain names, trademarks and service marks in the U.S. and internationally. Additionally, we have filed U.S. and international patent applications covering certain aspects of our proprietary technology. Effective trademark, copyright, patent, domain name, trade dress and trade secret protection is typically expensive to maintain and may require litigation. We must protect our intellectual property rights and other proprietary rights in an increasing number of jurisdictions, a process that is expensive and time consuming and may not be successful.

We have registered our core brands as trademarks and domain names in the U.S. and a large number of other jurisdictions and have in place an active program to continue to secure trademarks and domain names that correspond to our brands in markets of interest. If we are unable to register or protect our trademarks or domain names, we could be adversely affected in any jurisdiction in which our trademarks or domain names are not registered or protected. We have licensed in the past, and expect to license in the future, certain of our proprietary rights, such as trademarks or copyrighted material, to others.

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From time to time, third parties have claimed - and others will likely claim in the future - that we have infringed their intellectual property rights. We are typically involved in a number of such legal proceedings at any time. Please see the information in “Item 3: Legal Proceedings” and in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” under the captions “The listing or sale by our users of items that allegedly infringe the intellectual property rights of rights owners, including pirated or counterfeit items, may harm our business,” and “We may be unable to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights and face ongoing risk from patent litigation and allegations by third parties that we are infringing their intellectual property rights.”

Employees

As of December 31, 2019, we employed approximately 13,300 people globally. Approximately 6,600 of our employees were located in the U.S.

Available Information

Our Internet address is www.ebay.com. Our investor relations website is located at investors.ebayinc.com. We make available free of charge on our investor relations website under the heading “Financial Information - SEC Filings” our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such materials are electronically filed with (or furnished to) the SEC.

We webcast our earnings calls and certain events we participate in or host with members of the investment community on our investor relations website. Additionally, we provide notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance, including SEC filings, investor events, press and earnings releases, and blogs on our investor relations website. Company sustainability information for investors is available on our investor relations website under the heading “ESG Investors.” Corporate governance information, including our governance guidelines for our Board of Directors (“Board”), Board committee charters and code of conduct, is also available on our investor relations website under the heading “Corporate Governance.”

The contents of our websites and webcasts and information that can be accessed through our websites and webcasts are not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or in any other report or document we file with (or furnish to) the SEC, and any references to our websites and webcasts are intended to be inactive textual references only.

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Item 1A: RISK FACTORS

You should carefully review the following discussion of the risks that may affect our business, results of operations and financial condition, as well as our consolidated financial statements and notes thereto and the other information appearing in this report, for important information regarding risks that affect us. Current global economic events and conditions may amplify many of these risks. These risks are not the only risks that may affect us. Additional risks that we are not aware of or do not believe are material at the time of this filing may also become important factors that adversely affect our business.

Risk Factors That May Affect our Business, Results of Operations and Financial Condition

Our operating and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows, as well as the trading price of our common stock and debt securities.

Our operating and financial results have varied on a quarterly basis during our operating history and may continue to fluctuate significantly as a result of a variety of factors, including as a result of the risks set forth in this “Risk Factors” section. It is difficult for us to forecast the level or source of our revenues or earnings (loss) accurately. In view of the rapidly evolving nature of our business, period-to-period comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful, and you should not rely upon them as an indication of future performance. We do not have backlog, and substantially all of our net revenues each quarter come from transactions involving sales during that quarter. Due to the inherent difficulty in forecasting revenues, it is also difficult to forecast expenses as a percentage of net revenues. Quarterly and annual expenses as a percentage of net revenues reflected in our consolidated financial statements may be significantly different from historical or projected percentages. Our operating results in one or more future quarters may fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors. The trading price of our common stock and debt securities could decline, perhaps substantially, as a result of the factors described in this paragraph and the other risks set forth in this “Risk Factors” section.

Substantial and increasingly intense competition worldwide in ecommerce may harm our business.

The businesses and markets in which we operate are intensely competitive. We currently and potentially compete with a wide variety of online and offline companies providing goods and services to consumers and merchants. The Internet and mobile networks provide new, rapidly evolving and intensely competitive channels for the sale of all types of goods and services. We compete in two-sided markets, and must attract both buyers and sellers to use our platforms. Consumers who purchase or sell goods and services through us have more and more alternatives, and merchants have more channels to reach consumers. We expect competition to continue to intensify. Online and offline businesses increasingly are competing with each other and our competitors include a number of online and offline retailers with significant resources, large user communities and well-established brands. Moreover, the barriers to entry into these channels can be low, and businesses easily can launch online sites or mobile platforms and applications at nominal cost by using commercially available software or partnering with any of a number of successful ecommerce companies. As we respond to changes in the competitive environment, we may, from time to time, make pricing, service or marketing decisions or acquisitions that may be controversial with and lead to dissatisfaction among sellers, which could reduce activity on our platform and harm our profitability.

We face increased competitive pressure online and offline. In particular, the competitive norm for, and the expected level of service from, ecommerce and mobile commerce has significantly increased due to, among other factors, improved user experience, greater ease of buying goods, lower (or no) shipping costs, faster shipping times and more favorable return policies. In addition, certain platform businesses, such as Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, many of whom are larger than us or have greater capitalization, have a dominant and secure position in other industries or certain significant markets, and offer other goods and services to consumers and merchants that we do not offer. If we are unable to change our products, offerings and services in ways that reflect the changing demands of ecommerce and mobile commerce marketplaces, particularly the higher growth of sales of fixed-price items and higher expected service levels (some of which depend on services provided by sellers on our platforms), or compete effectively with and adapt to changes in larger platform businesses, our business will suffer.

Competitors with other revenue sources may also be able to devote more resources to marketing and promotional campaigns, adopt more aggressive pricing policies and devote more resources to website, mobile platforms and applications and systems development than we can. Other competitors may offer or continue to offer faster and/or

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free shipping, delivery on Sunday, same-day delivery, favorable return policies or other transaction-related services which improve the user experience on their sites and which could be impractical or inefficient for our sellers to match. Competitors may be able to innovate faster and more efficiently, and new technologies may increase the competitive pressures by enabling competitors to offer more efficient or lower-cost services.

Some of our competitors control other products and services that are important to our success, including credit card interchange, Internet search, and mobile operating systems. Such competitors could manipulate pricing, availability, terms or operation of service related to their products and services in a manner that impacts our competitive offerings. For example, Google, which operates a shopping platform service, has from time to time made changes to its search algorithms that reduced the amount of search traffic directed to us from searches on Google. If we are unable to use or adapt to operational changes in such services, we may face higher costs for such services, face integration or technological barriers or lose customers, which could cause our business to suffer.

Consumers who might use our sites to buy goods have a wide variety of alternatives, including traditional department, warehouse, boutique, discount and general merchandise stores (as well as the online and mobile operations of these traditional retailers), online retailers and their related mobile offerings, online and offline classified services and other shopping channels, such as offline and online home shopping networks. In the United States, these include, but are not limited to, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Etsy, Shopify, Wayfair, Costco, Rakuten, QVC and HSN, among others. In addition, consumers have a large number of online and offline channels focused on one or more of the categories of products offered on our site.

Consumers also can turn to many companies that offer a variety of services that provide other channels for buyers to find and buy items from sellers of all sizes, including social media, online aggregation and classifieds platforms, such as websites operated by Schibsted ASA or Naspers Limited and others such as craigslist, Oodle.com, Facebook. Consumers also can turn to shopping-comparison sites, such as Google Shopping. In certain markets, our fixed-price listing and traditional auction-style listing formats increasingly are being challenged by other formats, such as classifieds.

Our Classifieds platforms offer classifieds listings in a variety of international markets. In many markets in which they operate, our Classifieds platforms compete for customers and for advertisers against more established online and offline classifieds platforms or other competing websites.

We use product search engines and paid search advertising to help users find our sites, but these services also have the potential to divert users to other online shopping destinations. Consumers may choose to search for products and services with a horizontal search engine or shopping comparison website, and such sites may also send users to other shopping destinations. In addition, sellers are increasingly utilizing multiple sales channels, including the acquisition of new customers by paying for search-related advertisements on horizontal search engine sites, such as Google, Naver and Baidu.

Consumers and merchants who might use our sites to sell goods also have many alternatives, including general ecommerce sites, such as Amazon, Alibaba, Zalando and Coupang and more specialized sites, such as Etsy. Our international sites also compete for sellers with general and specialized ecommerce sites. Sellers may also choose to sell their goods through other channels, such as classifieds platforms. Consumers and merchants also can create and sell through their own sites, and may choose to purchase online advertising instead of using our services. In some countries, there are online sites that have larger customer bases and greater brand recognition, as well as competitors that may have a better understanding of local culture and commerce. We may increasingly compete with local competitors in developing countries that have unique advantages, such as a greater ability to operate under local regulatory authorities.

In addition, certain manufacturers may limit or cease distribution of their products through online channels, such as our sites. Manufacturers may attempt to use contractual obligations or existing or future government regulation to prohibit or limit ecommerce in certain categories of goods or services. Manufacturers may also attempt to enforce minimum resale price maintenance or minimum advertised price arrangements to prevent distributors from selling on our platforms or on the Internet generally, or drive distributors to sell at prices that would make us less attractive relative to other alternatives. The adoption by manufacturers of policies, or their use of laws or regulations, in each case discouraging or restricting the sales of goods or services over the Internet, could force our users to stop selling certain products on our platforms, which could adversely affect our results of operations and result in loss of market share and diminished value of our brands.

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The principal competitive factors for us include the following:

• ability to attract, retain and engage buyers and sellers;

• volume of transactions and price and selection of goods;

• trust in the seller and the transaction;

• customer service;

• brand recognition;    

• community cohesion, interaction and size;

• website, mobile platform and application ease-of-use and accessibility;

• system reliability and security;

• reliability of delivery and payment, including customer preference for fast delivery and free shipping and returns;

• level of service fees; and

• quality of search tools.

We may be unable to compete successfully against current and future competitors. Some current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases and greater brand recognition in other business and Internet sectors than we do.

Global and regional economic conditions could harm our business.

Our operations and performance depend significantly on global and regional economic conditions. Economic conditions, including inflation, recession, or other adverse economic events or changes, could have a negative and adverse impact on companies and customers with which we do business and could have a material adverse effect on our business, including a reduction in the volume and prices of transactions on our commerce platforms. These events and conditions, including uncertainties and instability in economic and market conditions caused by the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union (known as “Brexit”) and any outcomes resulting from that vote, could have a negative and adverse impact on companies and customers with which we do business or cause us to write down our assets or investments. Because we have global operations, including in the United Kingdom and the European Union, we face risks due to the uncertainty and the potential disruptions surrounding Brexit, including potential financial, legal, tax and trade implications.

We are exposed to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, which could negatively impact our financial results.

Because we generate the majority of our revenues outside the United States but report our financial results in U.S. dollars, our financial results are impacted by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, or foreign exchange rates. The results of operations of many of our internationally focused platforms are exposed to foreign exchange rate fluctuations as the financial results of the applicable subsidiaries are translated from the local currency into U.S. dollars for financial reporting purposes. If the U.S. dollar weakens against foreign currencies, the translation of these foreign currency denominated revenues or expenses will result in increased U.S. dollar denominated revenues and expenses. Similarly, if the U.S. dollar strengthens against foreign currencies, particularly the euro, British pound, Korean won or Australian dollar, our translation of foreign currency denominated revenues or expenses will result in lower U.S. dollar denominated net revenues and expenses. In addition to this translation effect, a strengthening U.S. dollar will typically adversely affect the volume of goods being sold by U.S. sellers to Europe and Australia more than it positively affects the volume of goods being sold by sellers in those geographies to buyers in the United States, thereby further negatively impacting our financial results.

While from time to time we enter into transactions to hedge portions of our foreign currency translation exposure, it is impossible to predict or eliminate the effects of this exposure. Fluctuations in foreign exchange rates could significantly impact our financial results, which may have a significant impact on the trading price of our common stock and debt securities.

Our international operations are subject to increased risks, which could harm our business.

Our international businesses, especially in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Korea, and cross-border business from greater China, have generated a majority of our net revenues in recent years. In addition to uncertainty about our ability to generate revenues from our foreign operations and expand into international markets, there are risks inherent in doing business internationally, including:

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• uncertainties and instability in economic and market conditions caused by the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union and any outcomes resulting from that vote;

• uncertainty regarding how the United Kingdom’s access to the European Union Single Market and the wider trading, legal, regulatory and labor environments, especially in the United Kingdom and European Union, will be impacted by the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union and any outcomes resulting from that vote, including the resulting impact on our business and that of our clients;

• expenses associated with localizing our products and services and customer data, including offering customers the ability to transact business in the local currency and adapting our products and services to local preferences (e.g., payment methods) with which we may have limited or no experience;

• trade barriers and changes in trade regulations;

• difficulties in developing, staffing, and simultaneously managing a large number of varying foreign operations as a result of distance, language, and cultural differences;

• stringent local labor laws and regulations;

• credit risk and higher levels of payment fraud;

• profit repatriation restrictions, foreign currency exchange restrictions or extreme fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates for a particular currency;

• political or social unrest, economic instability, repression, or human rights issues;

• geopolitical events, including natural disasters, public health issues, acts of war, and terrorism;

• import or export regulations;

• compliance with U.S. laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and foreign laws prohibiting corrupt payments to government officials, as well as U.S. and foreign laws designed to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities;

• antitrust and competition regulations;

• potentially adverse tax developments and consequences;

• economic uncertainties relating to sovereign and other debt;

• different, uncertain, or more stringent user protection, data protection, privacy, and other laws;

• risks related to other government regulation or required compliance with local laws;

• national or regional differences in macroeconomic growth rates;

• payment intermediation regulations;

• local licensing and reporting obligations; and

• increased difficulties in collecting accounts receivable.

Violations of the complex foreign and U.S. laws and regulations that apply to our international operations may result in fines, criminal actions, or sanctions against us, our officers, or our employees; prohibitions on the conduct of our business; and damage to our reputation. Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to promote compliance with these laws, there can be no assurance that our employees, contractors, or agents will not violate our policies. These risks inherent in our international operations and expansion increase our costs of doing business internationally and could harm our business.

Any factors that reduce cross-border trade or make such trade more difficult could harm our business.

Cross-border trade is an important source of both revenue and profits for us. Cross-border trade also represents our primary (or in some cases, only) presence in certain important markets, such as Brazil, Latin America, China, and various other countries. In addition, our cross-border trade is also subject to, and may be impacted by, foreign exchange rate fluctuations.

The interpretation and application of specific national or regional laws, such as those related to intellectual property rights of authentic products, selective distribution networks, and sellers in other countries listing items on the Internet, and the potential interpretation and application of laws of multiple jurisdictions (e.g., the jurisdiction of the buyer, the seller, and/or the location of the item being sold) are often extremely complicated in the context of cross-border trade. The interpretation and/or application of such laws could impose restrictions on, or increase the costs of, purchasing, selling, shipping, or returning goods across national borders.

The shipping of goods across national borders is often more expensive and complicated than domestic shipping. Customs and duty procedures and reviews, including duty-free thresholds in various key markets, the interaction of national postal systems, and security related governmental processes at international borders, may increase costs, discourage cross-border purchases, delay transit and create shipping uncertainties. Any factors that increase the costs

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of cross-border trade or restrict, delay, or make cross-border trade more difficult or impractical would lower our revenues and profits and could harm our business.

Our business may be adversely affected by geopolitical events, natural disasters, seasonal factors and other factors that cause our users to spend less time on our websites or mobile platforms and applications, including increased usage of other websites.

Our users may spend less time on our websites and our applications for mobile devices as a result of a variety of diversions, including: geopolitical events, such as war, the threat of war, or terrorist activity; natural disasters or the effects of climate change (such as drought, flooding, wildfires, increased storm severity, and sea level rise); power shortages or outages, major public health issues, including pandemics; social networking or other entertainment websites or mobile applications; significant local, national or global events capturing the attention of a large part of the population; and seasonal fluctuations due to a variety of factors. If any of these, or any other factors, divert our users from using our websites or mobile applications, our business could be materially adversely affected.

Our success depends to a large degree on our ability to successfully address the rapidly evolving market for transactions on mobile devices.

Mobile devices are increasingly used for ecommerce transactions. A significant and growing portion of our users access our platforms through mobile devices. We may lose users if we are not able to continue to meet our users’ mobile and multi-screen experience expectations. The variety of technical and other configurations across different mobile devices and platforms increases the challenges associated with this environment. In addition, a number of other companies with significant resources and a number of innovative startups have introduced products and services focusing on mobile markets.

Our ability to successfully address the challenges posed by the rapidly evolving market for mobile transactions is crucial to our continued success, and any failure to continuously increase the volume of mobile transactions effected through our platforms could harm our business.

If we cannot keep pace with rapid technological developments or continue to innovate and create new initiatives to provide new programs, products and services, the use of our products and our revenues could decline.

Rapid, significant technological changes continue to confront the industries in which we operate and we cannot predict the effect of technological changes on our business. We also continuously strive to create new initiatives and innovations that offer growth opportunities, such as our new payments and advertising offerings. In addition to our own initiatives and innovations, we rely in part on third parties, including some of our competitors, for the development of and access to new technologies. We expect that new services and technologies applicable to the industries in which we operate will continue to emerge. These new services and technologies may be superior to, or render obsolete, the technologies we currently use in our products and services. Incorporating new technologies into our products and services may require substantial expenditures and take considerable time, and ultimately may not be successful. In addition, our ability to adopt new services and develop new technologies may be inhibited by industry-wide standards, new laws and regulations, resistance to change from our users, clients or merchants, or third parties’ intellectual property rights. Our success will depend on our ability to develop new technologies and adapt to technological changes and evolving industry standards.

Our business is subject to extensive government regulation and oversight.

We are subject to laws and regulations affecting our domestic and international operations in a number of areas, including consumer protection, data privacy requirements, intellectual property ownership and infringement, prohibited items and stolen goods, resale of event tickets, tax, antitrust and anti-competition, export requirements, anti-corruption, labor, advertising, digital content, real estate, billing, ecommerce, promotions, quality of services, telecommunications, mobile communications and media, environmental, and health and safety regulations, as well as laws and regulations intended to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities. In addition, we are, or may become, subject to further regulation in some of the above-mentioned areas or new areas as a result of the continued development and expansion of our payments capabilities.

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Compliance with these laws, regulations, and similar requirements may be onerous and expensive, and variances and inconsistencies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction may further increase the cost of compliance and doing business. Any such costs, which may rise in the future as a result of changes in these laws and regulations or in their interpretation, could individually or in the aggregate make our products and services less attractive to our customers, delay the introduction of new products or services in one or more regions, or cause us to change or limit our business practices. We have implemented policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, but there can be no assurance that our employees, contractors, or agents will not violate such laws and regulations or our policies and procedures.  

Regulation in the areas of privacy and protection of user data could harm our business.

We are subject to laws relating to the collection, use, retention, security, and transfer of personally identifiable information about our users around the world. Much of the personal information that we collect, especially financial information, is regulated by multiple laws. User data protection laws may be interpreted and applied inconsistently from country to country. In many cases, these laws apply not only to third-party transactions, but also to transfers of information between or among ourselves, our subsidiaries, and other parties with which we have commercial relations. These laws continue to develop in ways we cannot predict and that may harm our business.

Regulatory scrutiny of privacy, user data protection, use of data and data collection is increasing on a global basis. We are subject to a number of privacy and similar laws and regulations in the countries in which we operate and these laws and regulations will likely continue to evolve over time, both through regulatory and legislative action and judicial decisions. In addition, compliance with these laws may restrict our ability to provide services to our customers that they may find to be valuable. For example, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) became effective in May 2018. The GDPR, which applies to all of our activities conducted from an establishment in the European Union or related to products and services offered in the European Union, imposes a range of new compliance obligations regarding the handling of personal data. The GDPR imposes significant new obligations and compliance with these obligations depends in part on how particular regulators interpret and apply them. If we fail to comply with the GDPR, or if regulators assert we have failed to comply with the GDPR, it may lead to regulatory enforcement actions, which can result in monetary penalties of up to 4% of worldwide revenue, private lawsuits, or reputational damage. In the U.S., California has adopted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), which became effective January 1, 2020 and which provides a new private right of action for data breaches and requires companies that process information on California residents to make new disclosures to consumers about their data collection, use and sharing practices and allow consumers to opt out of certain data sharing with third parties. In addition to the CCPA, several other U.S. states are considering adopting laws and regulations imposing obligations regarding the handling of personal data. Compliance with the GDPR, the CCPA, and other current and future applicable international and U.S. privacy, cybersecurity and related laws can be costly and time-consuming. Complying with these varying national and international requirements could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business and violations of privacy-related laws can result in significant penalties.

A determination that there have been violations of laws relating to our practices under communications-based laws could also expose us to significant damage awards, fines and other penalties that could, individually or in the aggregate, materially harm our business. In particular, because of the enormous number of texts, emails and other communications we send to our users, communications laws that provide a specified monetary damage award or fine for each violation (such as those described below) could result in particularly large awards or fines.

For example, the Federal Communications Commission amended certain of its regulations under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, in 2012 and 2013 in a manner that could increase our exposure to liability for certain types of telephonic communication with customers, including but not limited to text messages to mobile phones. Under the TCPA, plaintiffs may seek actual monetary loss or statutory damages of $500 per violation, whichever is greater, and courts may treble the damage award for willful or knowing violations. We are regularly subject to class-action lawsuits, as well as individual lawsuits, containing allegations that our businesses violated the TCPA. These lawsuits, and other private lawsuits not currently alleged as class actions, seek damages (including statutory damages) and injunctive relief, among other remedies. Given the enormous number of communications we send to our users, a determination that there have been violations of the TCPA or other communications-based statutes could expose us to significant damage awards that could, individually or in the aggregate, materially harm our business.

We post on our websites our privacy policies and practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of user data. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with our posted privacy policies or with any regulatory requirements

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or orders or other federal, state or international privacy or consumer protection-related laws and regulations, including the GDPR and the CCPA, could result in proceedings or actions against us by governmental entities or others (e.g., class action privacy litigation), subject us to significant penalties and negative publicity, require us to change our business practices, increase our costs and adversely affect our business. Data collection, privacy and security have become the subject of increasing public concern. If Internet and mobile users were to reduce their use of our websites, mobile platforms, products, and services as a result of these concerns, our business could be harmed. As noted above, we are also subject to the possibility of security breaches, which themselves may result in a violation of these laws.

Other laws and regulations could harm our business.

It is not always clear how laws and regulations governing matters relevant to our business, such as property ownership, copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property issues, parallel imports and distribution controls, taxation, libel and defamation, and obscenity apply to our businesses. Many of these laws were adopted prior to the advent of the Internet, mobile, and related technologies and, as a result, do not contemplate or address the unique issues of the Internet and related technologies. Many of these laws, including some of those that do reference the Internet are subject to interpretation by the courts on an ongoing basis and the resulting uncertainty in the scope and application of these laws and regulations increases the risk that we will be subject to private claims and governmental actions alleging violations of those laws and regulations.

As our activities, the products and services we offer, and our geographical scope continue to expand, regulatory agencies or courts may claim or hold that we or our users are subject to additional requirements (including licensure) or prohibited from conducting our business in their jurisdiction, either generally or with respect to certain actions. Financial and political events have increased the level of regulatory scrutiny on large companies, and regulatory agencies may view matters or interpret laws and regulations differently than they have in the past and in a manner adverse to our businesses. Our success and increased visibility have driven some existing businesses that perceive us to be a threat to their businesses to raise concerns about our business models to policymakers and regulators. These businesses and their trade association groups employ significant resources in their efforts to shape the legal and regulatory regimes in countries where we have significant operations. They may employ these resources in an effort to change the legal and regulatory regimes in ways intended to reduce the effectiveness of our businesses and the ability of users to use our products and services. These established businesses have raised concerns relating to pricing, parallel imports, professional seller obligations, selective distribution networks, stolen goods, copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual property rights and the liability of the provider of an Internet marketplace for the conduct of its users related to those and other issues. Any changes to the legal or regulatory regimes in a manner that would increase our liability for third-party listings could negatively impact our business.

Numerous U.S. states and foreign jurisdictions, including the State of California, have regulations regarding “auctions” and the handling of property by “secondhand dealers” or “pawnbrokers.” Several states and some foreign jurisdictions have attempted to impose such regulations upon us or our users, and others may attempt to do so in the future. Attempted enforcement of these laws against some of our users appears to be increasing and we could be required to change the way we or our users do business in ways that increase costs or reduce revenues, such as forcing us to prohibit listings of certain items or restrict certain listing formats in some locations. We could also be subject to fines or other penalties, and any of these outcomes could harm our business.

A number of the lawsuits against us relating to trademark issues seek to have our platforms subject to unfavorable local laws. For example, “trademark exhaustion” principles provide trademark owners with certain rights to control the sale of a branded authentic product until it has been placed on the market by the trademark holder or with the holder’s consent. The application of “trademark exhaustion” principles is largely unsettled in the context of the Internet, and if trademark owners are able to force us to prohibit listings of certain items in one or more locations, our business could be harmed.

As we expand and localize our international activities, we are increasingly becoming obligated to comply with the laws of the countries or markets in which we operate. In addition, because our services are accessible worldwide and we facilitate sales of goods and provide services to users worldwide, one or more jurisdictions may claim that we or our users are required to comply with their laws based on the location of our servers or one or more of our users, or the location of the product or service being sold or provided in an ecommerce transaction. For example, we were found liable in France, under French law, for transactions on some of our websites worldwide that did not involve French buyers or sellers. Laws regulating Internet, mobile and ecommerce technologies outside of the United States are generally less favorable to us than those in the United States. Compliance may be more costly or may require us to

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change our business practices or restrict our service offerings, and the imposition of any regulations on us or our users may harm our business. In addition, we may be subject to multiple overlapping legal or regulatory regimes that impose conflicting requirements on us (e.g., in cross-border trade). Our alleged failure to comply with foreign laws could subject us to penalties ranging from criminal prosecution to significant fines to bans on our services, in addition to the significant costs we may incur in defending against such actions.

We are regularly subject to general litigation, regulatory disputes, and government inquiries.

We are regularly subject to claims, lawsuits (including class actions and individual lawsuits), government investigations, and other proceedings involving competition and antitrust, intellectual property, privacy, consumer protection, accessibility claims, securities, tax, labor and employment, commercial disputes, content generated by our users, services and other matters. The number and significance of these disputes and inquiries have increased as our company has grown larger, our businesses have expanded in scope and geographic reach, and our products and services have increased in complexity.

The outcome and impact of such claims, lawsuits, government investigations, and other proceedings cannot be predicted with certainty. Regardless of the outcome, such investigations and proceedings can have an adverse impact on us because of legal costs, diversion of management resources, and other factors. Determining reserves for our pending litigation and other proceedings is a complex, fact-intensive process that is subject to judgment calls. It is possible that a resolution of one or more such proceedings could require us to make substantial payments to satisfy judgments, fines or penalties or to settle claims or proceedings, any of which could harm our business. These proceedings could also result in reputational harm, criminal sanctions, consent decrees, or orders preventing us from offering certain products, or services, or requiring a change in our business practices in costly ways, or requiring development of non-infringing or otherwise altered products or technologies. Any of these consequences could harm our business.

We are subject to regulatory activity and antitrust litigation under competition laws that could adversely impact our business.

We are subject to scrutiny by various government agencies under U.S. and foreign laws and regulations, including antitrust and competition laws. Some jurisdictions also provide private rights of action for competitors or consumers to assert claims of anti-competitive conduct. Other companies and government agencies have in the past and may in the future allege that our actions violate the antitrust or competition laws of the United States, individual states, the European Union or other countries, or otherwise constitute unfair competition. An increasing number of governments are regulating competition law activities, including increased scrutiny in large markets such as China. Our business partnerships or agreements or arrangements with customers or other companies could give rise to regulatory action or antitrust litigation. Some regulators, particularly those outside of the United States, may perceive our business to be used so broadly that otherwise uncontroversial business practices could be deemed anticompetitive. Certain competition authorities have conducted market studies of our industries. Such claims and investigations, even if without foundation, may be very expensive to defend, involve negative publicity and substantial diversion of management time and effort and could result in significant judgments against us or require us to change our business practices.

Fluctuations in interest rates, and changes in regulatory guidance related to such interest rates, could adversely impact our financial results.

Some of our borrowings bear interest at floating rates and we have entered into agreements intended to convert the interest rate on some of our fixed rate debt instruments to floating rates. To the extent that prevailing rates increase, our interest expense under these debt instruments will increase.

Investments in both fixed-rate and floating-rate interest-earning instruments carry varying degrees of interest rate risk. The fair market value of our fixed-rate investment securities may be adversely impacted due to a rise in interest rates. In general, fixed-rate securities with longer maturities are subject to greater interest-rate risk than those with shorter maturities. While floating rate securities generally are subject to less interest-rate risk than fixed-rate securities, floating-rate securities may produce less income than expected if interest rates decrease and may also suffer a decline in market value if interest rates increase. Due in part to these factors, our investment income may decline or we may suffer losses in principal if securities are sold that have declined in market value due to changes in interest rates. In addition, relatively low interest rates limit our investment income. Fluctuations in interest rates that increase the cost

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of our current or future indebtedness, cause the market value of our assets to decline or reduce our investment income could adversely affect our financial results.

Our tickets business is subject to regulatory, competitive and other risks that could harm this business.

Our tickets business, which includes StubHub, is subject to numerous risks, including:

• Some jurisdictions, in particular jurisdictions outside the United States, prohibit the resale of event tickets (anti-scalping laws) at prices above the face value of the tickets or at all, or highly regulate the resale of tickets, and new laws and regulations or changes to existing laws and regulations imposing these or other restrictions could limit or inhibit our ability to operate, or our users’ ability to continue to use, our tickets business.

• Regulatory agencies or courts may claim or hold that we are responsible for ensuring that our users comply with these laws and regulations.

• In many jurisdictions, our tickets business depends on commercial partnerships with event organizers or licensed ticket vendors, which we must develop and maintain on acceptable terms for our tickets business to be successful.

• Our tickets business is subject to seasonal fluctuations and the general economic and business conditions that impact the sporting events and live entertainment industries.

• A portion of the tickets inventory sold by sellers on the StubHub platform is processed by StubHub in digital form. Systems failures, security breaches, theft or other disruptions that result in the loss of such sellers’ tickets inventory, could result in significant costs and a loss of consumer confidence in our tickets business.

• Lawsuits alleging a variety of causes of actions have in the past, and may in the future, be filed against StubHub and eBay by venue owners, competitors, ticket buyers, and unsuccessful ticket buyers. Such lawsuits could result in significant costs and require us to change our business practices in ways that negatively affect our tickets business.

• Our tickets business also faces significant competition from a number of sources, including ticketing service companies, event organizers, ticket brokers, and online and offline ticket resellers. Some ticketing service companies, event organizers, and professional sports teams have begun to issue event tickets through various forms of electronic ticketing systems that are designed to restrict or prohibit the transferability (and by extension, the resale) of such event tickets either to favor their own resale affiliates or to discourage resale or restrict resale of season tickets to a preferred, designated website. Ticketing service companies have also begun to use market-based pricing strategies or dynamic pricing to charge much higher prices, and impose additional restrictions on transferability, for premium tickets.

• Some sports teams have threatened to revoke the privileges of season ticket owners if they resell their tickets through a platform that is not affiliated with, or approved by, such sports teams.

• To the extent that StubHub holds ticket inventory, we may be exposed to losses associated with such inventory.

The listing or sale by our users of items that allegedly infringe the intellectual property rights of rights owners, including pirated or counterfeit items, may harm our business.

The listing or sale by our users of unlawful, counterfeit or stolen goods or unlawful services, or sale of goods or services in an unlawful manner, has resulted and may continue to result in allegations of civil or criminal liability for unlawful activities against us (including the employees and directors of our various entities) involving activities carried out by users through our services. In a number of circumstances, third parties, including government regulators and law enforcement officials, have alleged that our services aid and abet violations of certain laws, including laws regarding the sale of counterfeit items, laws restricting or prohibiting the transferability (and by extension, the resale) of digital goods (e.g., event tickets, books, music and software), the fencing of stolen goods, selective distribution channel laws, customs laws, distance selling laws, anti-scalping laws with respect to the resale of tickets, and the sale of items outside of the United States that are regulated by U.S. export controls.

In addition, allegations of infringement of intellectual property rights, including but not limited to counterfeit items, have resulted in threatened and actual litigation from time to time by rights owners, including the following luxury brand owners: Tiffany & Co. in the United States; Rolex S.A. and Coty Prestige Lancaster Group GmbH in Germany; Louis Vuitton Malletier and Christian Dior Couture in France; and L’Oréal SA, Lancôme Parfums et Beauté & Cie, and Laboratoire Garnier & Cie in several European countries. Plaintiffs in these and similar suits seek, among other remedies, injunctive relief and damages. Statutory damages for copyright or trademark violations could range up to $150,000 per copyright violation and $2,000,000 per trademark violation in the United States, and may be even higher in other jurisdictions. In the past, we have paid substantial amounts in connection with resolving certain trademark and

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copyright suits. These and similar suits may also force us to modify our business practices in a manner that increases costs, lowers revenue, makes our websites and mobile platforms less convenient to customers, and requires us to spend substantial resources to take additional protective measures or discontinue certain service offerings in order to combat these practices. In addition, we have received significant media attention relating to the listing or sale of illegal or counterfeit goods, which could damage our reputation, diminish the value of our brand names, and make users reluctant to use our products and services.

We are subject to risks associated with information disseminated through our services.

Online services companies may be subject to claims relating to information disseminated through their services, including claims alleging defamation, libel, breach of contract, invasion of privacy, negligence, copyright or trademark infringement, among other things. The laws relating to the liability of online services companies for information disseminated through their services are subject to frequent challenges both in the United States and foreign jurisdictions. Any liabilities incurred as a result of these matters could require us to incur additional costs and harm our reputation and our business.

Our potential liability to third parties for the user-provided content on our sites, particularly in jurisdictions outside the United States where laws governing Internet transactions are unsettled, may increase. If we become liable for information provided by our users and carried on our service in any jurisdiction in which we operate, we could be directly harmed and we may be forced to implement new measures to reduce our exposure to this liability, including expending substantial resources or discontinuing certain service offerings, which could harm our business.

Changes to our programs to protect buyers and sellers could increase our costs and loss rate.

Our eBay Money Back Guarantee program represents the means by which we compensate users who believe that they have been defrauded, have not received the item that they purchased or have received an item different from what was described. In addition, as we expand our payments capabilities, we may be exposed to losses associated with compensating our sellers for fraudulent payments. We expect to continue to receive communications from users requesting reimbursement or threatening or commencing legal action against us if no reimbursement is made. Our liability for these sorts of claims is slowly beginning to be clarified in some jurisdictions and may be higher in some non-U.S. jurisdictions than it is in the United States. Litigation involving liability for any such third-party actions could be costly and time consuming for us, divert management attention, result in increased costs of doing business, lead to adverse judgments or settlements or otherwise harm our business. In addition, affected users will likely complain to regulatory agencies that could take action against us, including imposing fines or seeking injunctions.

Development of our payments system requires ongoing investment, is subject to evolving laws, regulations, rules, and standards, and involves risk, including risks related to our dependence on third-party providers.

We have invested and plan to continue to invest internal resources into our payments tools in order to maintain existing availability, expand into additional markets and offer new payment methods and tools to our buyers and sellers. If we fail to invest adequate resources into payments on our platform, or if our investment efforts are unsuccessful or unreliable, our payments services may not function properly or keep pace with competitive offerings, which could negatively impact their usage and our marketplaces. Further, our ability to expand our payments services into additional countries is dependent upon the third-party providers we use to support this service. As we expand the availability of our payments services to additional markets or offer new payment methods to our sellers and buyers in the future, we may become subject to additional regulations and compliance requirements, and exposed to heightened fraud risk, which could lead to an increase in our operating expenses.

We rely on third-party service providers to perform services related to compliance, credit card processing, payment disbursements, currency exchange, identity verification, sanctions screening, and fraud analysis and detection. As a result, we are subject to a number of risks related to our dependence on third-party service providers. If any or some of these service providers fail to perform adequately or if any such service provider were to terminate or modify its relationship with us unexpectedly, our sellers’ ability to use our platform to receive orders or payments could be adversely affected, which would increase costs, drive sellers away from our marketplaces, result in potential legal liability, and harm our business. In addition, we and our third-party service providers may experience service outages from time to time that could adversely impact payments made on our platform. Additionally, any unexpected termination or modification of those third-party services could lead to a lapse in the effectiveness of certain fraud prevention and detection tools.

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Our third-party service providers may increase the fees they charge us in the future, which would increase our operating expenses. This could, in turn, require us to increase the fees we charge to sellers and cause some sellers to reduce listings on our marketplaces or to leave our platform altogether by closing their accounts.

Payments are governed by complex and continuously evolving laws and regulations that are subject to change and vary across different jurisdictions in the United States and globally. As a result, we are required to spend significant time and effort to determine whether various licensing and registration laws relating to payments apply to us and to comply with applicable laws and licensing and registration regulations. In addition, there can be no assurance that we will be able to obtain or retain any necessary licenses or registrations. Any failure or claim of failure on the part of the Company or its third-party service providers to comply with applicable laws and regulations relating to payments could require us to expend significant resources, result in liabilities, limit or preclude our ability to enter certain markets and harm our reputation. In addition, changes in payment regulations, including changes to the credit or debit card interchange rates in the United States or other markets, could adversely affect payments on our platform and make our payments systems less profitable.

Further, we are indirectly subject to payment card association operating rules and certification requirements pursuant to agreements with our third-party payment processors. These rules and requirements, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and rules governing electronic funds transfers, are subject to change or reinterpretation, making it difficult for us to comply. Any failure to comply with these rules and certification requirements could impact our ability to meet our contractual obligations to our third-party payment processors and could result in potential fines. In addition, changes in these rules and requirements, including any change in our designation by major payment card providers, could require a change in our business operations and could result in limitations on or loss of our ability to accept payment cards, any of which could negatively impact our business. Such changes could also increase our costs of compliance, which could lead to increased fees for us or our sellers and adversely affect payments on our platform or usage of our payments services and marketplaces.

We may be unable to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights and face ongoing risks from patent litigation and allegations by third parties that we are infringing their intellectual property rights.

We believe the protection of our intellectual property, including our trademarks, patents, copyrights, domain names, trade dress, and trade secrets, is critical to our success. We seek to protect our intellectual property rights by relying on applicable laws and regulations in the United States and internationally, as well as a variety of administrative procedures. We also rely on contractual restrictions to protect our proprietary rights when offering or procuring products and services, including confidentiality and invention assignment agreements entered into with our employees and contractors and confidentiality agreements with parties with whom we conduct business.

However, effective intellectual property protection may not be available in every country in which our products and services are made available, and contractual arrangements and other steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property may not prevent third parties from infringing or misappropriating our intellectual property or deter independent development of equivalent or superior intellectual property rights by others. Trademark, copyright, patent, domain name, trade dress and trade secret protection is very expensive to maintain and may require litigation. We must protect our intellectual property rights and other proprietary rights in an increasing number of jurisdictions, a process that is expensive and time consuming and may not be successful in every jurisdiction. Also, we may not be able to discover or determine the extent of any unauthorized use of our proprietary rights. We have licensed in the past, and expect to license in the future, certain of our proprietary rights, such as trademarks or copyrighted material, to others. These licensees may take actions that diminish the value of our proprietary rights or harm our reputation. Any failure to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights, or significant costs incurred in doing so, could materially harm our business.

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Additionally, we have repeatedly been sued for allegedly infringing other parties’ patents. We are a defendant in a number of patent suits and have been notified of several other potential patent disputes. We expect that we will increasingly be subject to patent infringement claims because, among other reasons:

• our products and services continue to expand in scope and complexity;

• we continue to expand into new businesses, including through acquisitions and licenses; and

• the universe of patent owners who may claim that we, any of the companies that we have acquired, or our customers infringe their patents, and the aggregate number of patents controlled by such patent owners, continues to increase.

As the number of patent owners and products in the software industry increases and the functionality of these products further overlap, and as we acquire technology through acquisitions or licenses, litigation may be necessary to determine the validity and scope of the intellectual property rights of others and we may become increasingly subject to patent suits and other infringement claims, including copyright, and trademark infringement claims. Such claims may be brought directly against us and/or against our customers whom we may indemnify either because we are contractually obligated to do so or we choose to do so as a business matter. We believe that an increasing number of these claims against us and other technology companies have been, and continue to be, initiated by third parties whose sole or primary business is to assert such claims. In addition, we have seen significant patent disputes between operating companies in some technology industries. Patent claims, whether meritorious or not, are time-consuming and costly to defend and resolve, and could require us to make expensive changes in our methods of doing business, enter into costly royalty or licensing agreements, make substantial payments to satisfy adverse judgments or settle claims or proceedings, or cease conducting certain operations, which would harm our business

The ultimate outcome of any allegation or litigation is uncertain and, regardless of the outcome, any of the claims described above, with or without merit, may be time-consuming, result in costly litigation, divert management’s time and attention from our business, require us to stop selling, delay roll-out, or redesign our products, or require us to pay substantial amounts to satisfy judgments or settle claims or lawsuits or to pay substantial royalty or licensing fees, or to satisfy indemnification obligations that we have with some of our customers. Our failure to obtain necessary license or other rights, or litigation or claims arising out of intellectual property matters, may harm our business.

Failure to deal effectively with fraudulent activities on our platforms would increase our loss rate and harm our business, and could severely diminish merchant and consumer confidence in and use of our services.

We face risks with respect to fraudulent activities on our platforms and periodically receive complaints from buyers and sellers who may not have received the goods that they had contracted to purchase or payment for the goods that a buyer had contracted to purchase. In some European and Asian jurisdictions, buyers may also have the right to withdraw from a sale made by a professional seller within a specified time period. While we can, in some cases, suspend the accounts of users who fail to fulfill their payment or delivery obligations to other users, we do not have the ability to require users to make payment or deliver goods, or otherwise make users whole other than through our buyer protection program, which in the United States we refer to as the eBay Money Back Guarantee, or as we roll out our new payments capabilities, by compensating our sellers for fraudulent payments. Although we have implemented measures to detect and reduce the occurrence of fraudulent activities, combat bad buyer experiences and increase buyer satisfaction, including evaluating sellers on the basis of their transaction history and restricting or suspending their activity, there can be no assurance that these measures will be effective in combating fraudulent transactions or improving overall satisfaction among sellers, buyers, and other participants. Additional measures to address fraud could negatively affect the attractiveness of our services to buyers or sellers, resulting in a reduction in the ability to attract new users or retain current users, damage to our reputation, or a diminution in the value of our brand names.

We have substantial indebtedness, and we may incur substantial additional indebtedness in the future, and we may not generate sufficient cash flow from our business to service our indebtedness. Failure to comply with the terms of our indebtedness could result in the acceleration of our indebtedness, which could have an adverse effect on our cash flow and liquidity.

We have a substantial amount of outstanding indebtedness and we may incur substantial additional indebtedness in the future, including under our commercial paper program and revolving credit facility or through public or private offerings of debt securities. Our outstanding indebtedness and any additional indebtedness we incur may have significant consequences, including, without limitation, any of the following:

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• requiring us to use a significant portion of our cash flow from operations and other available cash to service our indebtedness, thereby reducing the amount of cash available for other purposes, including capital expenditures, dividends, share repurchases, and acquisitions;

• our indebtedness and leverage may increase our vulnerability to downturns in our business, to competitive pressures, and to adverse changes in general economic and industry conditions;

• adverse changes in the ratings assigned to our debt securities by credit rating agencies will likely increase our borrowing costs;

• our ability to obtain additional financing for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, share repurchases, dividends or other general corporate and other purposes may be limited; and

• our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and our industry may be limited.

These risks increase as the level of our debt increases. Our ability to make payments of principal of and interest on our indebtedness depends upon our future performance, which will be subject to general economic conditions, industry cycles and financial, business and other factors affecting our results of operations and financial condition, many of which are beyond our control. If we are unable to generate sufficient cash flow from operations in the future to service our debt, we may be required to, among other things:

• incur the tax cost of repatriating funds to the United States;

• seek additional financing in the debt or equity markets;

• refinance or restructure all or a portion of our indebtedness;

• sell selected assets; or

• reduce or delay planned capital or operating expenditures.

Such measures might not be sufficient to enable us to service our debt. In addition, any such financing, refinancing or sale of assets might not be available on economically favorable terms or at all.

Our revolving credit facility and the indenture pursuant to which certain of our outstanding debt securities were issued contain, and any debt instruments we enter into in the future may contain, financial and other covenants that restrict or could restrict, among other things, our business and operations. If we fail to pay amounts due under, or breach any of the covenants in, a debt instrument, then the lenders would typically have the right to demand immediate repayment of all borrowings thereunder (subject in certain cases to grace or cure period). Moreover, any such acceleration and required repayment of or default in respect of any of our indebtedness could, in turn, constitute an event of default under other debt instruments, thereby resulting in the acceleration and required repayment of that other indebtedness. Any of these events could materially adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition.

A downgrade in our credit ratings could materially adversely affect our business.

The credit ratings assigned to our debt securities could change based upon, among other things, our results of operations, financial condition or dispositions and acquisitions. These ratings are subject to ongoing evaluation by credit rating agencies, and there can be no assurance that such ratings will not be lowered, suspended or withdrawn entirely by a rating agency or placed on a so-called “watch list” for a possible downgrade or assigned a negative ratings outlook if, in any rating agency’s judgment, circumstances so warrant. Actual or anticipated changes or downgrades in our credit ratings, including any announcement that our ratings are under review for a downgrade or have been assigned a negative outlook, would likely increase our borrowing costs, which could in turn have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and could harm our business.

Our business may be subject to sales and other taxes.

The application of indirect taxes such as sales and use tax, value-added tax (“VAT”), goods and services tax (including the “digital services tax”), business tax and gross receipt tax to ecommerce businesses is a complex and evolving issue. Many of the fundamental statutes and regulations that impose these taxes were established before the adoption and growth of the Internet and ecommerce. In many cases, it is not clear how existing statutes apply to ecommerce services. In addition, many state and foreign governments are looking for ways to increase revenues, which has resulted in legislative action, including new taxes on services and gross revenues and through other indirect taxes. There are many transactions that occur during the ordinary course of business for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain.

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From time to time, some taxing authorities in the United States have notified us that they believe we owe them certain taxes imposed on our services. These notifications have not resulted in any significant tax liabilities to date, but there is a risk that some jurisdiction may be successful in the future, which would harm our business.

Similar issues exist outside of the United States, where the application of VAT or other indirect taxes on ecommerce providers is complex and evolving. While we attempt to comply in those jurisdictions where it is clear that a tax is due, some of our subsidiaries have, from time to time, received claims relating to the applicability of indirect taxes to our fees. Additionally, we pay input VAT on applicable taxable purchases within the various countries in which we operate. In most cases, we are entitled to reclaim this input VAT from the various countries. However, because of our unique business model, the application of the laws and rules that allow such reclamation is sometimes uncertain. A successful assertion by one or more countries that we are not entitled to reclaim VAT could harm our business.

In certain jurisdictions, we collect and remit indirect taxes on our fees and pay taxes on our purchases of goods and services. However, tax authorities may raise questions about our calculation, reporting and collection of these taxes and may ask us to remit additional taxes. Should any new taxes become applicable to our services or if the taxes we pay are found to be deficient, our business could be harmed.

We may have exposure to greater than anticipated tax liabilities.

The determination of our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities requires estimation and significant judgment, and there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. Like many other multinational corporations, we are subject to tax in multiple U.S. and foreign jurisdictions and have structured our operations to reduce our effective tax rate. Our determination of our tax liability is always subject to audit and review by applicable domestic and foreign tax authorities, and we are currently undergoing a number of investigations, audits and reviews by taxing authorities throughout the world, including with respect to our business structure. Any adverse outcome of any such audit or review could harm our business, and the ultimate tax outcome may differ from the amounts recorded in our financial statements and may materially affect our financial results in the period or periods for which such determination is made. While we have established reserves based on assumptions and estimates that we believe are reasonable to cover such eventualities, these reserves may prove to be insufficient.

In addition, our future income taxes could be adversely affected by a shift in our jurisdictional earning mix, by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, as a result of gains on our foreign exchange risk management program, or changes in tax laws, regulations, or accounting principles, as well as certain discrete items.

In light of continuing fiscal challenges in certain U.S. states and in many countries in Europe, various levels of government are increasingly focused on tax reform and other legislative action to increase tax revenue, including corporate income taxes. A number of U.S. states have attempted to increase corporate tax revenues by taking an expansive view of corporate presence to attempt to impose corporate income taxes and other direct business taxes on companies that have no physical presence in their state, and taxing authorities in foreign jurisdictions may take similar actions. Many U.S. states are also altering their apportionment formulas to increase the amount of taxable income or loss attributable to their state from certain out-of-state businesses. Similarly, in Europe, and elsewhere in the world, there are various tax reform efforts underway designed to ensure that corporate entities are taxed on a larger percentage of their earnings. Companies that operate over the Internet, such as eBay, are a target of some of these efforts. If more taxing authorities are successful in applying direct taxes to Internet companies that do not have a physical presence in their respective jurisdictions, this could increase our effective tax rate.

Our business and its users are subject to Internet sales tax and sales reporting and record-keeping obligations.

The application of sales tax and other indirect taxes on cross border sales by remote sellers is continuing to change and evolve. On June 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. et al, a case challenging the current law under which online retailers are not required to collect sales and use tax unless they have a physical presence in the buyer’s state. This decision allows states to adopt new or enforce existing laws requiring sellers to collect and remit sales and use tax, even in states in which the seller has no presence. The adoption or enforcement of any such legislation could result in a sales and use tax collection responsibility for certain of our sellers. This collection responsibility and the additional costs associated with complex sales and use tax collection, remittance and audit requirements could create additional burdens for buyers and sellers on our websites and mobile platforms and could harm our business. Moreover, the application of such taxes on our commerce platforms could cause a marketplace to be less attractive to current and prospective buyers, which could adversely impact our business, financial

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performance, and growth. The majority of U.S. states have enacted laws or have pending legislation that require marketplace facilitators to collect and remit sales tax for some or all sellers using these marketplaces.

Similar laws imposing tax collection responsibility on foreign sellers are being considered in other countries as well. We are now jointly liable for U.K. VAT and German VAT for certain sellers who fail to fulfill their VAT obligations unless we suspend their eBay activity until the seller resolves the matter with the corresponding VAT authority. Other jurisdictions are considering similar legislation.

Multiple jurisdictions have enacted laws which require marketplaces to report user activity or collect and remit taxes on certain items sold on the marketplace. For example, we are collecting Australian GST on certain imports into Australia and remitting the GST to the Australian Tax Office. The European Union has also adopted a VAT reform package which starting in 2021 requires marketplaces such as eBay to collect and remit VAT on most imports from outside the European Union.

One or more states, the U.S. federal government or foreign countries may seek to impose reporting or record-keeping obligations on companies that engage in or facilitate ecommerce. Such an obligation could be imposed by legislation intended to improve tax compliance or if one of our companies was ever deemed to be the legal agent of the users of our services by a jurisdiction in which it operates. Certain of our companies are required to report to the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) and most states on customers subject to U.S. income tax if they reach certain payment thresholds. As a result, we are required to request tax identification numbers from certain payees, track payments by tax identification number and, under certain conditions, withhold a portion of payments and forward such withholding to the IRS. These obligations can increase operational costs and change our user experience. Any failure by us to meet these requirements could result in substantial monetary penalties and other sanctions and could harm our business. Imposition of an information reporting requirement could decrease seller or buyer activity on our sites and would harm our business.

We have periodically received requests from tax authorities for information regarding the transactions of large classes of sellers on our sites, and in some cases we have been legally obligated to provide this data. The imposition of any requirements on us to disclose transaction records for all or a class of sellers to tax or other regulatory authorities or to file tax forms on behalf of any sellers, especially requirements that are imposed on us but not on alternative means of ecommerce, and any use of those records to investigate, collect taxes from or prosecute sellers or buyers, could decrease activity on our sites and harm our business.

Our business is subject to online security risks, including security breaches and cyberattacks.

Our businesses involve the storage and transmission of users’ personal financial information. In addition, a significant number of our users authorize us to bill their payment card accounts directly for all transaction and other fees charged by us or, in certain cases, third-party service providers utilized in our payment services. An increasing number of websites, including those owned by several other large Internet and offline companies, have disclosed breaches of their security, some of which have involved sophisticated and highly targeted attacks on portions of their websites or infrastructure. The techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable, or degrade service, or sabotage systems, change frequently, may be difficult to detect for a long time, and often are not recognized until launched against a target. Certain efforts may be state sponsored and supported by significant financial and technological resources and therefore may be even more difficult to detect. As a result, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Unauthorized parties may also attempt to gain access to our systems or facilities through various means, including hacking into our systems or facilities, fraud, trickery or other means of deceiving our employees, contractors and temporary staff. A party that is able to circumvent our security measures, or those of our third-party service providers, could misappropriate our or our users’ personal information, cause interruption or degradations in our operations, damage our computers or those of our users, or otherwise damage our reputation. In addition, our users have been and likely will continue to be targeted by parties using fraudulent “spoof” and “phishing” emails to misappropriate user names, passwords, payment card numbers, or other personal information or to introduce viruses or other malware through “trojan horse” programs to our users’ computers. Our information technology and infrastructure may be vulnerable to cyberattacks or security incidents and third parties may be able to access our users’ proprietary information and payment card data that are stored on or accessible through our systems. Any security breach at a company providing services to us or our users could have similar effects.

In May 2014, we publicly announced that criminals were able to penetrate and steal certain data, including usernames, encrypted user passwords and other non-financial user data. Upon making this announcement, we required

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all buyers and sellers on our platform to reset their passwords in order to log into their account. The breach and subsequent password reset have negatively impacted the business. In July 2014, a putative class action lawsuit was filed against us for alleged violations and harm resulting from the breach. The lawsuit was dismissed with leave to amend. In addition, we have received requests for information and became subject to investigations regarding this incident from numerous regulatory and other government agencies across the world.

We may also need to expend significant additional resources to protect against security breaches or to redress problems caused by breaches. These issues are likely to become more difficult and costly as we expand the number of markets where we operate. Additionally, our insurance policies carry low coverage limits, which may not be adequate to reimburse us for losses caused by security breaches and we may not be able to fully collect, if at all, under these insurance policies.

Systems failures or cyberattacks and resulting interruptions in the availability of or degradation in the performance of our websites, applications, products or services could harm our business.

Our systems may experience service interruptions or degradation due to of hardware and software defects or malfunctions, computer denial-of-service and other cyberattacks, human error, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, natural disasters, power losses, disruptions in telecommunications services, fraud, military or political conflicts, terrorist attacks, computer viruses, or other events. Our systems are also subject to break-ins, sabotage and intentional acts of vandalism. Some of our systems are not fully redundant and our disaster recovery planning is not sufficient for all eventualities.

We have experienced and will likely continue to experience system failures, denial-of-service attacks and other events or conditions from time to time that interrupt the availability or reduce the speed or functionality of our websites and mobile applications, including our payments services. These events have resulted and likely will result in loss of revenue. A prolonged interruption in the availability or reduction in the speed or other functionality of our websites and mobile applications or payments services could materially harm our business. Frequent or persistent interruptions in our services could cause current or potential users to believe that our systems are unreliable, leading them to switch to our competitors or to avoid our sites, and could permanently harm our reputation and brands. Moreover, to the extent that any system failure or similar event results in damages to our customers or their businesses, these customers could seek significant compensation from us for their losses and those claims, even if unsuccessful, would likely be time-consuming and costly for us to address. We also rely on facilities, components and services supplied by third parties and our business may be materially adversely affected to the extent these components or services do not meet our expectations or these third parties cease to provide the services or facilities. In particular, a decision by any of our third-party hosting providers to close a facility that we use could cause system interruptions and delays, result in loss of critical data and cause lengthy interruptions in our services. We do not carry business interruption insurance sufficient to compensate us for losses that may result from interruptions in our service as a result of systems failures and similar events.

The closing of the proposed sale of StubHub is subject to various risks and uncertainties, may not be completed in accordance with expected plans or on the currently contemplated timeline, or at all, and the pending sale may be disruptive to StubHub.

As previously announced, on November 24, 2019, we entered into a stock purchase agreement with an affiliate of viagogo to sell StubHub.

The sale is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2020. The completion, on our expected timeline, of the proposed sale of StubHub is subject to closing conditions and viagogo’s ability to obtain debt and equity financing on a timely basis. If the conditions to the closing of the sale of StubHub are neither satisfied nor, where permissible, waived on a timely basis or at all, we may be unable to complete the sale of StubHub or such completion may be delayed beyond our expected timeline. We are also subject to risks regarding the failure of the buyer to obtain the necessary financing to complete the transactions contemplated by the stock purchase agreement and risks related to the equity and debt financing and related guarantee arrangements entered in connection with the stock purchase agreement. 

Whether or not the proposed sale of StubHub is completed, the announcement and pendency of the StubHub sale may be disruptive to StubHub and may adversely affect StubHub’s relationships with current and prospective employees and business partners and buyers and sellers on its platform. Uncertainties related to the pending sale of

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StubHub may impair StubHub’s ability to attract, retain and motivate key personnel and could divert the attention of StubHub’s management and other employees from its day-to-day business and operations in preparation for and during the sale. If we are unable to effectively manage these risks, StubHub’s business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects would be adversely affected.

If the proposed sale of StubHub is delayed or not completed for any reason, including due to the inability to satisfy the closing conditions or due to the buyer’s inability to obtain the necessary financing or industry or economic conditions outside of our control, investor confidence could decline and we could face negative publicity and possible litigation. In addition, in the event of a failed transaction, we will have expended significant management resources in an effort to complete the sale and, although in some circumstances the buyer may be obligated to pay us a termination fee of $200 million, will have incurred significant transaction costs. Accordingly, if the proposed sale of StubHub is not completed on the terms set forth in the stock purchase agreement or at all, our business, results of operations, financial condition, cash flows and stock price may be adversely affected.

Acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, strategic partnerships and strategic investments could result in operating difficulties and could harm our business or impact our financial results.

We have acquired a significant number of businesses of varying size and scope, technologies, services, and products, disposed of significant businesses (including PayPal and our Enterprise business in 2015), and in November 2019 we have entered into an agreement to sell our StubHub business to viagogo. We expect to continue to evaluate and consider a wide array of potential strategic transactions as part of our overall business strategy, including business combinations, acquisitions, and dispositions of businesses, technologies, services, products, and other assets, as well as strategic investments and joint ventures.

These transactions may involve significant challenges and risks, including:

• the potential loss of key customers, merchants, vendors and other key business partners of the companies we acquire, or dispose of, following and continuing after announcement of our transaction plans;

• declining employee morale and retention issues affecting employees of companies that we acquire or dispose of, which may result from changes in compensation, or changes in management, reporting relationships, future prospects or the direction of the acquired or disposed business;

• difficulty making new and strategic hires of new employees;

• diversion of management time and a shift of focus from operating the businesses to the transaction, and in the case of an acquisition, integration and administration;

• the need to provide transition services to a disposed of company, which may result in the diversion of resources and focus;

• the need to integrate the operations, systems (including accounting, management, information, human resource and other administrative systems), technologies, products and personnel of each acquired company, which is an inherently risky and potentially lengthy and costly process;

• the inefficiencies and lack of control that may result if such integration is delayed or not implemented, and unforeseen difficulties and expenditures that may arise as a result;

• the need to implement or improve controls, procedures and policies appropriate for a larger public company at companies that prior to acquisition may have lacked such controls, procedures and policies or whose controls, procedures and policies did not meet applicable legal and other standards;

• risks associated with our expansion into new international markets;

• derivative lawsuits resulting from the acquisition or disposition;

• liability for activities of the acquired or disposed of company before the transaction, including intellectual property and other litigation claims or disputes, violations of laws, rules and regulations, commercial disputes, tax liabilities and other known and unknown liabilities and, in the case of dispositions, liabilities to the acquirors of those businesses under contractual provisions such as representations, warranties and indemnities;

• the potential loss of key employees following the transaction;

• the acquisition of new customer and employee personal information by us or a third-party acquiring assets or businesses from us, which in and of itself may require regulatory approval and or additional controls, policies and procedures and subject us to additional exposure; and

• our dependence on the acquired business’ accounting, financial reporting, operating metrics and similar systems, controls and processes and the risk that errors or irregularities in those systems, controls and processes will lead to errors in our consolidated financial statements or make it more difficult to manage the acquired business.

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At any given time, we may be engaged in discussions or negotiations with respect to one or more of these types of transactions and any of these transactions could be material to our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, it may take us longer than expected to fully realize the anticipated benefits of these transactions, and those benefits may ultimately be smaller than anticipated or may not be realized at all, which could adversely affect our business and operating results. Any acquisitions or dispositions may also require us to issue additional equity securities, spend our cash, or incur debt (and increased interest expense), liabilities, and amortization expenses related to intangible assets or write-offs of goodwill, which could adversely affect our results of operations and dilute the economic and voting rights of our stockholders.

We have made certain investments, including through joint ventures, in which we have a minority equity interest and/or lack management and operational control. The controlling joint venture partner in a joint venture may have business interests, strategies, or goals that are inconsistent with ours, and business decisions or other actions or omissions of the controlling joint venture partner or the joint venture company may result in harm to our reputation or adversely affect the value of our investment in the joint venture. Our strategic investments may also expose us to additional risks. Any circumstances, which may be out of our control, that adversely affect the value of our investments, or cost resulting from regulatory action or lawsuits in connection with our investments, could harm our business or negatively impact our financial results.

We entered into a warrant agreement in conjunction with a commercial agreement with Adyen that entitles us to acquire a fixed number of shares of the Adyen’s common stock subject to certain milestones being met. This warrant is accounted for as a derivative instrument under ASC Topic 815, Derivatives and Hedging. Changes in Adyen’s common stock price and equity volatility may have a significant impact on the value of this warrant. We report this warrant on a quarterly basis at fair value in our consolidated balance sheets, and changes in the fair value of this warrant are recognized in our consolidated statement of income. Fluctuations in Adyen’s common stock or other changes in assumptions could result in material changes in the fair value that we report in our consolidated balance sheets and our consolidated statement of income, which could have a material impact on our financial results.

We are subject to risks and uncertainties related to the strategic review of our asset portfolio, as well as the execution of our plan for operating efficiency.

In March 2019, we announced that we initiated, with the assistance of external financial advisors, a strategic review of our asset portfolio, including but not limited to StubHub and eBay Classifieds Group. In November 2019, as an outcome of our strategic review, we entered into an agreement to sell our StubHub business to viagogo. Our strategic review efforts continue, however, there can be no assurance that the strategic review will result in any further sale, spin-off or other business combination involving our assets. We will incur expenses in connection with the review and our future results may be affected by the pursuit or consummation of any specific transaction or other strategic alternative resulting from the strategic review. While this review is ongoing, we are exposed to certain risks and uncertainties, including retaining and attracting employees during the review process; the diversion of management’s time to the review; and exposure to potential litigation in connection with the review process or any specific transaction or other strategic alternative resulting therefrom, all of which could disrupt and negatively affect our business. Speculation regarding any developments related to the review of strategic alternatives and perceived uncertainties related to the future of the Company could cause our stock price to fluctuate significantly. There is no finite timetable for completion of the strategic review, and we can provide no assurance that any transaction or other strategic alternative we pursue will have a positive impact on our results of operations or financial condition.

In addition, we announced that our operating review has resulted in a three-year plan for operating efficiency, which is expected to enhance our operating margins and create capacity for reinvestment initiatives. The execution of this plan is subject to various risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to achieve the anticipated results of this plan.

Our success largely depends on key personnel. Because competition for our key employees is intense, we may not be able to attract, retain, and develop the highly skilled employees we need to support our business. The loss of senior management or other key personnel could harm our business.

Our future performance depends substantially on the continued services of our senior management and other key personnel, including key engineering and product development personnel, and our ability to attract, retain, and motivate key personnel. Competition for key personnel is intense, especially in the Silicon Valley where our corporate

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headquarters are located, and we may be unable to successfully attract, integrate or retain sufficiently qualified key personnel. In making employment decisions, particularly in the Internet and high-technology industries, job candidates often consider the value of the equity awards they would receive in connection with their employment and fluctuations in our stock price may make it more difficult to attract, retain and motivate employees. In addition, we do not have long-term employment agreements with any of our key personnel and do not maintain any “key person” life insurance policies. The loss of the services of any of our senior management or other key personnel, or our inability to attract highly qualified senior management and other key personnel, could harm our business.

On September 25, 2019, we announced the appointment of an interim Chief Executive Officer. Our Board of Directors is actively undertaking a search for our next Chief Executive Officer. This search and any eventual transition to a Chief Executive Officer may result in disruptions to our business and uncertainty among investors, employees and others concerning our future direction and performance. Any such disruptions and uncertainty, as well as a delay or failure in successfully identifying, attracting or retaining a permanent Chief Executive Officer, could have an adverse effect on our business and financial results.

Problems with or price increases by third parties who provide services to us or to our sellers could harm our business.

A number of third parties provide services to us or to our sellers. Such services include seller tools that automate and manage listings, merchant tools that manage listings and interface with inventory management software, storefronts that help our sellers list items and shipping providers that deliver goods sold on our platform, among others. Financial or regulatory issues, labor issues (e.g., strikes, lockouts, or work stoppages), or other problems that prevent these companies from providing services to us or our sellers could harm our business.

Price increases by, or service terminations, disruptions or interruptions at, companies that provide services to us and our sellers and clients could also reduce the number of listings on our platforms or make it more difficult for our sellers to complete transactions, thereby harming our business. Some third parties who provide services to us or our sellers may have or gain market power and be able to increase their prices to us without competitive constraint. While we continue to work with global carriers to offer our sellers a variety of shipping options and to enhance their shipping experience, postal rate increases may reduce the competitiveness of certain sellers’ offerings, and postal service changes could require certain sellers to utilize alternatives which could be more expensive or inconvenient, which could in turn decrease the number of transactions on our sites, thereby harming our business.

We have outsourced certain functions to third-party providers, including some customer support and product development functions, which are critical to our operations. If our service providers do not perform satisfactorily, our operations could be disrupted, which could result in user dissatisfaction and could harm our business.

There can be no assurance that third parties who provide services directly to us or our sellers will continue to do so on acceptable terms, or at all. If any third parties were to stop providing services to us or our sellers on acceptable terms, including as a result of bankruptcy, we may be unable to procure alternatives from other third parties in a timely and efficient manner and on acceptable terms, or at all.

Our developer platforms, which are open to merchants and third-party developers, subject us to additional risks.

We provide third-party developers with access to application programming interfaces, software development kits and other tools designed to allow them to produce applications for use, with a particular focus on mobile applications. There can be no assurance that merchants or third-party developers will develop and maintain applications and services on our open platforms on a timely basis or at all, and a number of factors could cause such third-party developers to curtail or stop development for our platforms. In addition, our business is subject to many regulatory restrictions. It is possible that merchants and third-party developers who utilize our development platforms or tools could violate these regulatory restrictions and we may be held responsible for such violations, which could harm our business.

We cannot provide assurance that we will continue to pay dividends on our common stock.

In January 2019, we initiated a quarterly cash dividend on our common stock. The timing, declaration, amount and payment of any future dividends fall within the discretion of our Board of Directors and will depend on many factors, including our available cash, working capital, financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, covenants in our debt instruments, applicable law and other considerations that our Board of Directors considers relevant. A

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reduction in the amount of cash dividends on our common stock, the suspension of those dividends or a failure to meet market expectations regarding potential dividend increases could have a material adverse effect on the market price of our common stock. If we do not pay cash dividends on our common stock in the future, realization of a gain on an investment in our common stock will depend entirely on the appreciation of the price of our common stock, which may not occur.

We could incur significant liability if the Distribution is determined to be a taxable transaction.

We have received an opinion from outside tax counsel to the effect that our distribution of 100% of the outstanding common stock of PayPal to our stockholders on July 17, 2015 (the “Distribution”) qualifies as a transaction that is described in Sections 355 and 368(a)(1)(D) of the Internal Revenue Code. The opinion relies on certain facts, assumptions, representations and undertakings from PayPal and us regarding the past and future conduct of the companies’ respective businesses and other matters. If any of these facts, assumptions, representations or undertakings are incorrect or not satisfied, our stockholders and we may not be able to rely on the opinion of tax counsel and could be subject to significant tax liabilities. Notwithstanding the opinion of tax counsel we have received, the IRS could determine on audit that the Distribution is taxable if it determines that any of these facts, assumptions, representations or undertakings are not correct or have been violated or if it disagrees with the conclusions in the opinion. If the Distribution is determined to be taxable for U.S. federal income tax purposes, our stockholders that are subject to U.S. federal income tax and we could incur significant U.S. federal income tax liabilities.

We may be exposed to claims and liabilities as a result of the Distribution.

We entered into a separation and distribution agreement and various other agreements with PayPal to govern the Distribution and the relationship of the two companies. These agreements provide for specific indemnity and liability obligations and could lead to disputes between us and PayPal. The indemnity rights we have against PayPal under the agreements may not be sufficient to protect us. In addition, our indemnity obligations to PayPal may be significant and these risks could negatively affect our results of operations and financial condition.

ITEM 1B: UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

Not applicable.

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ITEM 2: PROPERTIES    

We own and lease various properties in the U.S. and 31 other countries around the world. We use the properties for executive and administrative offices, data centers, product development offices, fulfillment centers and customer service offices. Our headquarters are located in San Jose, California and occupies approximately 0.5 million square feet. Our owned data centers are solely located in Utah. As of December 31, 2019, our owned and leased properties provided us with aggregate square footage as follows (in millions):

	United States	Other Countries	Total
Owned facilities	1.3	—	1.3
Leased facilities	0.8	3.9	4.7
Total facilities	2.1	3.9	6.0

From time to time we consider various alternatives related to our long-term facilities needs. While we believe that our existing facilities, which are used by all of our reportable segments, are adequate to meet our immediate needs, it may become necessary to develop and improve land that we own or lease or acquire additional or alternative space to accommodate any future growth.

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ITEM 3: LEGAL PROCEEDINGS    

Overview

We are involved in legal and regulatory proceedings on an ongoing basis. Many of these proceedings are in early stages and may seek an indeterminate amount of damages. If we believe that a loss arising from such matters is probable and can be reasonably estimated, we accrue the estimated liability in our financial statements. If only a range of estimated losses can be determined, we accrue an amount within the range that, in our judgment, reflects the most likely outcome; if none of the estimates within that range is a better estimate than any other amount, we accrue the low end of the range. For those proceedings in which an unfavorable outcome is reasonably possible but not probable, we have disclosed an estimate of the reasonably possible loss or range of losses or we have concluded that an estimate of the reasonably possible loss or range of losses arising directly from the proceeding (i.e., monetary damages or amounts paid in judgment or settlement) is not material. If we cannot estimate the probable or reasonably possible loss or range of losses arising from a proceeding, we have disclosed that fact. In assessing the materiality of a proceeding, we evaluate, among other factors, the amount of monetary damages claimed, as well as the potential impact of non-monetary remedies sought by plaintiffs (e.g., injunctive relief) that may require us to change our business practices in a manner that could have a material adverse impact on our business. With respect to the matters disclosed in this Item 3, we are unable to estimate the possible loss or range of losses that could potentially result from the application of such non-monetary remedies.

Amounts accrued for legal and regulatory proceedings for which we believe a loss is probable were not material for the year ended December 31, 2019. Except as otherwise noted for the proceedings described in this Item 3, we have concluded, based on currently available information, that reasonably possible losses arising directly from the proceedings (i.e., monetary damages or amounts paid in judgment or settlement) in excess of our recorded accruals are also not material. However, legal and regulatory proceedings are inherently unpredictable and subject to significant uncertainties. If one or more matters were resolved against us in a reporting period for amounts in excess of management’s expectations, the impact on our operating results or financial condition for that reporting period could be material. Legal fees are expensed as incurred.

General Matters

Third parties have from time to time claimed, and others may claim in the future, that we have infringed their intellectual property rights. We are subject to patent disputes, and expect that we could be subject to additional patent infringement claims involving various aspects of our business as our products and services continue to expand in scope and complexity. Such claims may be brought directly or indirectly against us and/or against our customers (who may be entitled to contractual indemnification under their contracts with us), and we are subject to increased exposure to such claims as a result of our acquisitions and divestitures and in cases where we are entering new lines of business. We have in the past been forced to litigate such claims. We may also become more vulnerable to third-party claims as laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Lanham Act and the Communications Decency Act are interpreted by the courts, and as we expand the scope of our business (both in terms of the range of products and services that we offer and our geographical operations) and become subject to laws in jurisdictions where the underlying laws with respect to the potential liability of online intermediaries like ourselves are either unclear or less favorable. We believe that additional lawsuits alleging that we have violated patent, copyright or trademark laws will be filed against us. Intellectual property claims, whether meritorious or not, are time consuming and costly to defend and resolve, could require expensive changes in our methods of doing business or could require us to enter into costly royalty or licensing agreements on unfavorable terms.

From time to time, we are involved in other disputes or regulatory inquiries that arise in the ordinary course of business, including suits by our users (individually or as class actions) alleging, among other things, improper disclosure of our prices, rules or policies, that our practices, prices, rules, policies or customer/user agreements violate applicable law or that we have acted unfairly and/or not acted in conformity with such practices, prices, rules, policies or agreements. Further, the number and significance of these disputes and inquiries are increasing as the political and regulatory landscape changes and, as we have grown larger, our businesses have expanded in scope (both in terms of the range of products and services that we offer and our geographical operations) and our products and services have increased in complexity. Any claims or regulatory actions against us, whether meritorious or not, could be time consuming, result in costly litigation, damage awards (including statutory damages for certain causes of action in certain jurisdictions), injunctive relief or increased costs of doing business through adverse judgment or settlement, require us to change our business practices in expensive ways, require significant amounts of management time, result in the diversion of significant operational resources or otherwise harm our business.

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Indemnification Provisions

We entered into a separation and distribution agreement and various other agreements with PayPal to govern the separation and relationship of the two companies. These agreements provide for specific indemnity and liability obligations and could lead to disputes between us and PayPal, which may be significant. In addition, the indemnity rights we have against PayPal under the agreements may not be sufficient to protect us and our indemnity obligations to PayPal may be significant.

In addition, we have entered into indemnification agreements with each of our directors, executive officers and certain other officers. These agreements require us to indemnify such individuals, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law, for certain liabilities to which they may become subject as a result of their affiliation with us.

In the ordinary course of business, we have included limited indemnification provisions in certain of our agreements with parties with which we have commercial relations, including our standard marketing, promotions and application-programming-interface license agreements. Under these contracts, we generally indemnify, hold harmless and agree to reimburse the indemnified party for losses suffered or incurred by the indemnified party in connection with claims by a third party with respect to our domain names, trademarks, logos and other branding elements to the extent that such marks are applicable to our performance under the subject agreement. In certain cases, we have agreed to provide indemnification for intellectual property infringement. It is not possible to determine the maximum potential loss under these indemnification provisions due to our limited history of prior indemnification claims and the unique facts and circumstances involved in each particular provision.

To date, losses recorded in our consolidated statement of income in connection with our indemnification provisions have not been significant, either individually or collectively.

ITEM 4: MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not applicable.

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PART II

ITEM 5: MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES        

Common Stock

Our common stock has been traded on The Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “EBAY” since September 24, 1998. As of January 27, 2020, there were approximately 3,524 holders of record of our common stock, although we believe that there are a significantly larger number of beneficial owners of our common stock.

Dividend Policy

During 2019, the company paid a total of $473 million in cash dividends. In January 2020, we declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per share of common stock to be paid on March 20, 2020 to stockholders of record as of March 2, 2020. The timing, declaration, amount and payment of any future cash dividends are at the discretion of the Board of Directors and will depend on many factors, including our available cash, working capital, financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, covenants in our credit agreement, applicable law and other business considerations that our Board of Directors considers relevant. See “We cannot provide assurance that we will continue to pay dividends on our common stock” under “Item 1A. Risk Factors.”

Performance Measurement Comparison

The graph below shows the cumulative total stockholder return of an investment of $100 (and the reinvestment of any dividends thereafter) on December 31, 2014 (the last trading day for the year ended December 31, 2014) in (i) our common stock, (ii) the Nasdaq Composite Index, (iii) the S&P 500 Index and (iv) the S&P 500 Information Technology Index. For the purpose of this graph, the distribution of 100% of the outstanding common stock of PayPal Holdings, Inc. (“PayPal”) to our stockholders, pursuant to which PayPal became an independent company, is treated as a non-taxable cash dividend of $41.46, an amount equal to the opening price of PayPal common stock on July 20, 2015 which was deemed reinvested in eBay common stock at the opening price on July 20, 2015.

Our stock price performance shown in the graph below is not indicative of future stock price performance. The graph and related information shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or be deemed to be “filed” with the SEC, nor shall such information be incorporated by reference into any past or future filing with the SEC, except to the extent that such filing specifically states that such graph and related information are incorporated by reference into such filing.

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Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers

Stock repurchase activity during the three months ended December 31, 2019 was as follows:

Period Ended	Total Number of Shares Purchased	Average Price Paid per Share (2)		Total Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Programs	Maximum Dollar Value that May Yet be Purchased Under the Programs (1)
October 31, 2019	9,212,301	$	37.77	9,212,301	$	2,803,012,054
November 30, 2019	8,942,446	$	35.29	8,942,446	$	2,487,397,753
December 31, 2019	9,475,674	$	35.50	9,475,674	$	2,150,987,394
	27,630,421			27,630,421

(1) In January 2018 our Board authorized a $6.0 billion stock repurchase program and in January 2019 our Board authorized an additional $4.0 billion stock repurchase program. These stock repurchase programs have no expiration from the date of authorization.

Our stock repurchase programs are intended to programmatically offset the impact of dilution from our equity compensation programs and, subject to market conditions and other factors, to make opportunistic and programmatic repurchases of our common stock to reduce our outstanding share count. Any share repurchases under our stock repurchase programs may be made through open market transactions, block trades, privately negotiated transactions (including accelerated share repurchase transactions) or other means at times and in such amounts as management deems appropriate and will be funded from our working capital or other financing alternatives.

During the three months ended December 31, 2019, we repurchased approximately $1.0 billion of our common stock under our stock repurchase program. As of December 31, 2019, a total of approximately $2.2 billion remained available for future repurchases of our common stock under our stock repurchase program. During January 2020, our Board authorized an additional $5.0 billion stock repurchase program, with no expiration from the date of authorization.

We expect, subject to market conditions and other uncertainties, to continue making opportunistic and programmatic repurchases of our common stock. However, our stock repurchase programs may be limited or terminated at any time without prior notice. The timing and actual number of shares repurchased will depend on a variety of factors, including corporate and regulatory requirements, price and other market conditions and management’s determination as to the appropriate use of our cash. 

(2) Excludes broker commissions.

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ITEM 6: SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The consolidated statement of income data for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements. The consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2019 and 2018 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements. The consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2017 and 2016 has been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements adjusted for the adoption of the ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (ASC 606). The consolidated statement of income data and consolidated balance sheet data as of and for the year ended December 31, 2015 is derived from our audited consolidated financial statements, which have not been adjusted for ASC 606.

	Year Ended December 31,
	2019		2018 (6)		2017 (4)(7)			2016 (4)(8)		2015
	(In millions, except per share amounts)
Consolidated Statement of Income Data: (1)
Net revenues	$	10,800	$	10,746	$	9,927		$	9,298	$	8,592
Gross profit	8,292		8,364		7,706			7,294		6,821
Income from operations	2,321		2,222		2,264			2,325		2,197
Income from continuing operations before income taxes	2,207		2,718		2,275			3,651		2,406
Income (loss) from continuing operations	1,792		2,528		(1,013		)	7,285		1,947
Income (loss) per share from continuing operations:
Basic	$	2.11	$	2.58	$	(0.95	)	$	6.43	$	1.61
Diluted	$	2.10	$	2.55	$	(0.95	)	$	6.37	$	1.60
Weighted average shares:
Basic	849		980		1,064			1,133		1,208
Diluted	856		991		1,064			1,144		1,220

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	As of December 31,
	2019		2018 (6)		2017 (4) (7)		2016 (4) (8)		2015
	(In millions)
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data: (1)
Cash and cash equivalents	$	975	$	2,202	$	2,120	$	1,816	$	1,832
Short-term investments	1,850		2,713		3,743		5,333		4,299
Long-term investments	1,316		3,778		6,331		3,969		3,391
Working capital - continuing operations	640		2,672		4,185		5,010		5,641
Working capital total (2)(3)	640		2,672		4,185		5,010		5,641
Total assets - continuing operations	18,174		22,819		25,986		23,851		17,785
Total assets	18,174		22,819		25,986		23,851		17,785
Short-term debt	1,022		1,546		781		1,451		—
Long-term debt	6,738		7,685		9,234		7,509		6,779
Total stockholders’ equity (5)	2,870		6,281		8,049		10,526		6,576
Dividends declared per share:	$	0.56	$	—	$	—	$	—	$	—

(1) Includes the impact of acquisitions and dispositions. For a summary of recent significant acquisitions and dispositions, please see “Note 3 - Business Combinations” to the consolidated financial statements included in this report.

(2) Working capital is calculated as the difference between total current assets and total current liabilities.

(3) Reflects the impact of the adoption of the new lease accounting standard in 2019 which was adopted prospectively.

(4) Reflects the impact of the adoption of the new revenue recognition accounting standard in 2018. Periods prior to 2016 have not been revised.

(5) Includes the impact of the Distribution of PayPal on July 17, 2015.

(6) The consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2018 includes the impact of a $463 million reduction to the provisional current and deferred tax liabilities recorded in the fourth quarter of 2017 and a $120 million reduction in 2018 to the deferred tax asset recognized in 2017 as a result of a tax rate change. The consolidated statement of income data for the year ended December 31, 2018 includes a $463 million income tax benefit and $120 million tax expense associated with such current and deferred tax liabilities and assets, respectively.

(7) The consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2017 includes the impact of a $695 million deferred tax asset recognized in 2017 as a result of our voluntary domiciling our Classifieds intangible assets into a new jurisdiction. The consolidated statement of income data for the year ended December 31, 2017 includes a $695 million income tax benefit associated with such deferred tax asset, $376 million caused by the foreign exchange remeasurement of our deferred tax assets and a $3.1 billion provisional tax expense associated with the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

(8) The consolidated balance sheet data for the year ended December 31, 2016 includes the impact of a $4.6 billion deferred tax asset recognized in 2016 as a result of our election to terminate an existing tax ruling and finalize a new agreement with the foreign tax authority. The consolidated statement of income data for the year ended December 31, 2016 includes a $4.6 billion income tax benefit associated with such deferred tax asset.

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ITEM 7: MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements that involve expectations, plans or intentions (such as those relating to future business, future results of operations or financial condition, new or planned features or services, management strategies or timing and other expectations regarding our sale of StubHub to viagogo). You can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as “may,” “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan” and other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, those discussed in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as in our consolidated financial statements, related notes, and the other information appearing elsewhere in this report and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update any of our forward-looking statements after the date of this report to reflect actual results or future events or circumstances. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. You should read the following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in this report.

OVERVIEW

Business

eBay Inc., a global commerce leader, includes Marketplace, StubHub and Classifieds platforms. Collectively, eBay connects millions of buyers and sellers around the world, empowering people and creating opportunity for all. Founded in 1995 in San Jose, California, eBay is one of the world’s largest and most vibrant marketplaces for discovering great value and unique selection. Our technologies and services are designed to give buyers choice and a breadth of relevant inventory and to enable sellers worldwide to organize and offer their inventory for sale, virtually anytime and anywhere. In 2019, eBay enabled over $90 billion of Gross Merchandise Volume.

Presentation

In addition to the corresponding measures under generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”), management uses non-GAAP measures in reviewing our financial results. The foreign exchange neutral (“FX-Neutral”), or constant currency, net revenue amounts discussed below are non-GAAP financial measures and are not in accordance with, or an alternative to, measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. Accordingly, the FX-Neutral information appearing in the following discussion of our results of operations should be read in conjunction with the information provided below in “Non-GAAP Measures of Financial Performance,” which includes reconciliations of FX-Neutral financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. We calculate the year-over-year impact of foreign currency movements using prior period foreign currency rates applied to current year transactional currency amounts.

Our commerce platforms operate globally, resulting in certain revenues that are denominated in foreign currencies, primarily the euro, British pound, Korean won and Australian dollar, subjecting us to foreign currency risk which may impact our financial results. Because of this and the fact that we generate a majority of our net revenues internationally, including during the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, we are subject to the risks related to doing business in foreign countries as discussed under “Item 1A: Risk Factors.”

The effect of foreign currency exchange rate movements during 2019 was primarily attributable to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the euro, British pound and Korean won.

Fiscal Year Highlights

Net revenues increased 1% to $10.8 billion in 2019 compared to 2018, primarily driven by Marketplace net transaction revenues and Classifieds marketing services and other revenues. FX-Neutral net revenue (as defined above) increased 2% in 2019 compared to 2018. Operating margin increased to 21.5% in 2019 compared to 20.7% in 2018.

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We generated cash flow from continuing operating activities of $3.1 billion in 2019 compared to $2.7 billion in 2018, ending the year with cash, cash equivalents and non-equity investments of $3.8 billion.

In the first quarter of 2019, we completed the acquisition of the U.K. based classifieds site, Motors.co.uk for $93 million in cash. During the third quarter of 2019, $400 million of floating rate notes and $1.15 billion of 2.200% fixed rate notes matured and were repaid. During the year ended December 31, 2019 we paid $473 million in cash dividends.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, we entered into a definitive agreement to sell StubHub to viagogo for a purchase price of $4.05 billion in cash. The sale is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approval and closing conditions.

Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations was $2.10 in 2019 compared to diluted earnings per share of $2.55 in 2018. In January 2020, we declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per share of common stock to be paid on March 20, 2020 to stockholders of record as of March 2, 2020.

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RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Net Revenues

Seasonality

We expect transaction activity patterns on our platforms to mirror general consumer buying patterns and expect that these trends will continue. The following table sets forth, for the periods presented, our total net revenues and the sequential quarterly movements of these net revenues (in millions, except percentages):

	Quarter Ended
	March 31			June 30			September 30			December 31
2017
Net revenues	$	2,303		$	2,419		$	2,498		$	2,707
Percent change from prior quarter	(7		)%	5		%	3		%	8		%
2018
Net revenues	$	2,580		$	2,640		$	2,649		$	2,877
Percent change from prior quarter	(5		)%	2		%	0		%	9		%
2019
Net revenues	$	2,643		$	2,687		$	2,649		$	2,821
Percent change from prior quarter	(8		)%	2		%	(1		)%	7		%

Net Revenues by Geography

Revenues are attributed to U.S. and international geographies primarily based upon the country in which the seller, platform that displays advertising, other service provider or customer, as the case may be, is located. The following table presents net revenues by geography for the periods presented (in millions, except percentages):

	Year Ended December 31,
	2019			% Change		2018			% Change		2017
U.S.	$	4,337		(1	)%	4,373			4	%	$	4,187
Percentage of net revenues	40		%			41		%			42		%
International	6,463			1	%	6,373			11	%	5,740
Percentage of net revenues	60		%			59		%			58		%
Total net revenues	$	10,800		1	%	$	10,746		8	%	$	9,927

Net revenues included $81 million of hedging gains and $8 million and $28 million of hedging losses during the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. The hedging activity in net revenues specifically relates to hedges of net transaction revenues generated by our Marketplace segment. Foreign currency movements relative to the U.S. dollar had an unfavorable impact of $211 million, a favorable impact of $174 million and unfavorable impact of $39 million on net revenues for the years December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. The effect of foreign currency exchange rate movements in 2019 compared to 2018 was primarily attributable to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the euro, British pound and Korean won. The effect of foreign currency exchange rate movements in 2018 compared to 2017 was primarily attributable to the weakening of the U.S. dollar against the euro, British pound and Korean won.

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Net Revenues by Type and Segment

We generate two types of net revenues:

Net transaction revenues primarily include final value fees, feature fees, including fees to promote listings, and listing fees from sellers on our Marketplace platforms and final value fees from sellers and buyers on our StubHub platforms. Our net transaction revenues also include store subscription and other fees often from large enterprise sellers. Our net transaction revenues are reduced by incentives, including discounts, coupons and rewards, provided to our customers.

Marketing services and other ("MS&O") revenues consist of Marketplace, StubHub and Classifieds revenues principally from the sale of advertisements, classifieds fees, revenue sharing arrangements and first-party inventory programs.

The following table presents net revenues by type and segment (in millions, except percentages):

	Year Ended December 31,
	2019			% Change		2018		% Change		2017
Net transaction revenues:
Marketplace	$	7,578		2	%	$	7,416	9	%	$	6,809
StubHub	1,057			(1	)%	1,068		6	%	1,011
Total net transaction revenues	8,635			2	%	8,484		8	%	7,820
Marketing services and other revenues:
Marketplace	1,060			(13	)%	1,225		3	%	1,192
Classifieds	1,061			4	%	1,022		14	%	897
StubHub	64			**		15		(17	)%	18
Elimination of inter-segment net revenues	(20		)	**		—		—	%	—
Total marketing services and other revenues	2,165			(4	)%	2,262		7	%	2,107
Total net revenues	$	10,800		1	%	$	10,746	8	%	$	9,927

** Not meaningful

Net Transaction Revenues

Key Operating Metrics

Gross Merchandise Volume (“GMV”) and take rate are significant factors that we believe affect our net transaction revenues.

GMV consists of the total value of all successfully closed transactions between users on our Marketplace or StubHub platforms during the applicable period, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transaction. Despite GMV’s divergence from revenue during 2019, we still believe that GMV provides a useful measure of the overall volume of closed transactions that flow through our platforms in a given period, notwithstanding the inclusion in GMV of closed transactions that are not ultimately consummated.

Take rate is defined as net transaction revenues divided by GMV.

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The following table presents GMV and take rate by segment for the periods presented (in millions, except percentages):

	Year Ended December 31,
	2019			% Change		2018			% Change		2017
GMV:
Marketplace	$	85,510		(5	)%	$	89,829		7	%	$	83,883
StubHub	4,700			(1	)%	4,751			5	%	4,520
Total	$	90,210		(5	)%	$	94,580		7	%	$	88,403
Transaction take rate:
Marketplace	8.86		%	0.61	%	8.25		%	0.13	%	8.12		%
StubHub	22.49		%	0.01	%	22.48		%	0.11	%	22.37		%
Total transaction take rate	9.57		%	0.60	%	8.97		%	0.12	%	8.85		%

Marketplace Net Transaction Revenues

	Year Ended December 31,				% Change				Year Ended December 31,				% Change
	2019		2018		As Reported		FX-Neutral		2018		2017		As Reported		FX-Neutral
Marketplace net transaction revenues (1)	7,578		7,416		2	%	4	%	7,416		6,809		9	%	7	%
Marketplace GMV	85,510		89,829		(5	)%	(2	)%	89,829		83,883		7	%	5	%
Marketplace take rate	8.86	%	8.25	%	0.61	%			8.25	%	8.12	%	0.13	%

(1) Marketplace net transaction revenues were net of $81 million, $8 million and $28 million hedging activity during the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017 respectively.

Marketplace net transaction revenues increased in 2019 compared to 2018 primarily due to growth in promoted listing fees and a higher take rate. Marketplace transaction take rate was higher in 2019 compared to 2018, primarily due to growth in promoted listing fees, which along with final value fees are calculated as a percentage of an item’s sale price, and category mix. The increase in Marketplace net transaction revenues in 2019 compared to 2018 was due to take rate considerations discussed above, despite declining Marketplace GMV. We expect that the divergence between Marketplace net transaction revenues and Marketplace GMV will continue. Despite GMV’s divergence from net transaction revenues during the year, we still believe the metric provides a useful measure of overall volume of closed transactions that flow through the platform in a given period.

The increase in Marketplace net transaction revenues in 2018 compared to 2017 was primarily due to an increase in Marketplace GMV and a favorable impact from foreign currency movements relative to the U.S. dollar. Marketplace transaction take rate was higher in 2018 compared to 2017, primarily due to growth in promoted listing fees, which along with final value fees are calculated as a percentage of an items sale price, and a decrease in seller incentives, partially offset by a decrease in revenues from final value fees attributable to pricing and category mix.

StubHub Net Transaction Revenues

The following table presents StubHub net transaction revenues and supplemental operating data (in millions, except percentages):

	Year Ended December 31,				% Change				Year Ended December 31,				% Change
	2019		2018		As Reported		FX-Neutral		2018		2017		As Reported		FX-Neutral
StubHub net transaction revenues	1,057		1,068		(1	)%	(1	)%	1,068		1,011		6	%	6	%
StubHub GMV	4,700		4,751		(1	)%	(1	)%	4,751		4,520		5	%	5	%
StubHub take rate	22.49	%	22.48	%	0.01	%			22.48	%	22.37	%	0.11	%

41

StubHub net transaction revenues in 2019 compared to 2018 decreased slightly primarily driven by lower GMV from concerts and theater, partially offset by an increase in sporting events and a slightly higher take rate. The slight increase in StubHub transaction take rate in 2019 compared to 2018 was primarily due to pricing changes partially offset by event mix.

The increase in StubHub net transaction revenues in 2018 compared to 2017 was primarily due to an increase in StubHub GMV. The increase in StubHub GMV in 2018 compared to 2017 was primarily driven by concerts and sporting events. The increase in StubHub transaction take rate in 2018 compared to 2017 was primarily due to pricing changes on the platform.

Marketing Services and Other Revenues

The following table presents MS&O revenues (in millions, except percentages):

	Year Ended December 31,					% Change				Year Ended December 31,				% Change
	2019			2018		As Reported		FX-Neutral		2018		2017		As Reported		FX-Neutral
Marketplace	$	1,060		$	1,225	(13	)%	(11	)%	$	1,225	$	1,192	3	%	1	%
Classifieds	1,061			1,022		4	%	9	%	1,022		897		14	%	10	%
StubHub	64			15		**		**		15		18		(17	)%	(18	)%
Elimination of inter-segment net revenues	$	(20	)	$	—	**		**		$	—	$	—