Established in 1995, eBay, an online auction house, is a global 24-hour megamonster of shopping and a platform for exchange. Its web interface has revolutionized the type of shopping that has traditionally been performed locally through antique traders, garage sales, and flea markets. Among the troves of eBay one can find the ordinary, the marvelous, the uncanny, the sacred, the fraud, the treasure, the ridiculous, and the sublime.

A veritable community, eBay is part of a digital culture where more and more daily needs are being met through the interface of computer screens in a specially designed social space. The experience of the online auction, like other multi-user experiences including games, dating, and conversation, has its own rules of engagement within the public realm. Intervening in this pop-cultural minefield are many artists and provocateurs.