The SEC said it was the first time it filed charges that were based on the sales of securities in an online auction. SEC laws mandate that if securities are offered to the public, even on the Web, they must be registered or have a registration exemption.

None of the three planned auctions was completed. Ebay pulled the plug on all of them after the company was contacted by the SEC.

Richard Davis of Duncanville, Texas; J.R. Hoff of Hudson, Wis.; and Louis Sitaras of Jupiter, Fla., agreed to cease and desist orders, without admitting or denying the charges.

EBay was not accused of any wrongdoing, the SEC said. San Jose, Calif.-based eBay, which is not registered with the SEC as a brokerage, was not aware of the auctions.

The commission alleged that in May, Davis posted an offer on eBay to sell a 5 percent interest in Mindhunt.com, a company he founded and planned to take public in a few months.

The SEC claimed that Davis had not incorporated Mindhunt at the time, and had no basis to claim it would go public on that schedule. He also allegedly offered to sell unregistered stock, but didn't get any bidders.

There were several bids on Hoff's offer in April to sell 1,000 unregistered shares in his company, AmeriGa.net, which also had not been incorporated, the SEC said.

Sitaras offered 2,000 shares of Metropolitan Health Networks Inc. , a health care services company, on eBay in May. But the shares were restricted and could not be sold until September. He withdrew the offer after hearing from the SEC.

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