eBay has won the bid to develop an electronic trading system for buying and selling media, mere days after an ad industry task force unveiled the plan to test the idea, reports MediaPost. After meeting with potential providers of the auction infrastructure, including Google, eBay was selected "based on their scale and their expertise and their…credibility in doing this kind of thing," according to Ray Warren, president of Carat Media Group Americas and a member of the task force.

eBay had pitched the concept to the Association of National Advertisers' Television Advertising Committee in January and did so again this week during the ANA's Financial Management Committee meeting. The task force has suggested a $50 million budget for the test phase.

The ANA is surveying its membership to gauge support, and a steering committee has not yet been organized; some of the largest national advertisers are opposed to the idea, and the ANA is not formally endorsing the pilot - though it supports the idea.