I never thought of this, but it makes perfect sense. I used to read my local Trader magazines all the time. Trader is a classified-ad empire that publishes over 500 local used-product books on cheap newspaper stock all over the world. Now it comes to light that Google, Yahoo!, and eBaby are sniffing around the company, and one of them might buy it. The London Times says that the deal "would see them embracing the world of "old" media for the first time" but that's not the point. Google, Yahoo!, or eBay would not be buying mounds of paper; one of them would be buying the vast customer list of local advertisers, and would no doubt begin migrating it online. eBay might seem to represent the most natural match, but Yahoo! and Google might be hungrier to bolster their local search products. Cost of acquisition? Trader is valued at 1.3B Euros, which converts to $1.58B U.S.
