eBay doesn't take kindly to strangers, but the company argues that's just good business.

This year alone the San Jose-based auction giant has sued at least three auction services in cases ranging from accusations of spam to copyright infringement and list spidering (using software to "pull" lists off eBay's site and post them on other sites).

This week the company canceled, without warning, over 100 auctions that were using a popular auction utility developed by Oakland-based Auctiva. eBay claims the auctions were canceled because several users violated eBay's listing policy, which prohibits placing links or advertisements for other auction services within an eBay auction. Auctiva claims eBay's being a big bully baring its bidding brutishness.

Auctiva first entered the market about four months ago with a software package that provides a host of tools for online sellers to automatically post, monitor and follow-up with buyers at their online auctions. Recently the company also added a "Showcase" product, which is when the trouble began.

Showcase allows auctioneers to automatically pool their auctions into one space. People or businesses with multiple auctions on different sites can instruct the Showcase software to scrape their auctions from each location and put them together in an automated gallery on an Auctiva-hosted page.

That, says Kevin Pursglove, Senior Director of Communications at eBay, was a no no.

"We canceled listings of some eBay users because they were linking to other sites," says Pursglove. "I dont know much about Auctiva, but our rules state clearly that eBay users cannot use links to take users to other sites that offer similar services to eBay. That's what these users are doing. As far as we're concerned it has nothing to do with Auctiva."

As far as Mark Schwartz, CEO of Auctiva is concerned, it has everything to do with Auctiva. Schwartz says having eBay sellers put a link to their Auctiva Showcase within an eBay auction doesn't violate eBay's policy because Auctiva isn't an auction site, nor is the company selling anything to auction buyers.

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"What we do is let sellers create their own homestead that is a dynamic catalog showing all of their auction items," says Schwartz. "All we are trying to do is improve the marketplace experience for everybody, which is good for eBay."

Schwartz's point is that even though linking to a Showcase page probably indirectly violates eBay's policy, the service helps sellers develop a brand and become a trusted source in the auction community, something increasingly more important for sellers to do.

"Up until even just a year ago it was all consumer to consumer auctions [on eBay], so branding wasn't as important," says Schwartz. "But now you have many small businesses selling through eBay as well, and these small businesses also have some other presence, either through an offline shop, catalogue or other Web space. Showcase helps sellers build trust and relationships with customers by showcasing everything they sell."

The claim on Auctiva's side is that eBay canceled the auctions as an intimidation ploy, which is exactly what several of the affected sellers claimed on an online auction discussion board shortly after the cancellations occurred.

"Don't use Showcace," wrote one user, "unless you want to get booted of eBay for no reason."

"That's not the least bit true," counters Pursglove. "The reason the auctions were removed was because the users were violating our user agreement. That agreement is very clear, and the great majority of our users know that."

Pursglove adds that eBay has agreed to refrain from canceling anymore Auctiva-assisted auctions until the two companies meet this evening to discuss the situation.

"The truth is, we can see why eBay is defensive," admits Schwartz. "eBay is practically a monopoly, so of course they feel threatened by anybody in their space. But they really shouldn't. We're not trying to compete with them."