Chicago (IL) - Auction site Ebay has bowed to pressure from the International Fund for Animal Welfare Tuesday, as the company announced that it would ban all sales of ivory products from its site. The decision came only hours before the IFAW released a report entitled “Killing with Keystrokes.” The new rule will go into effect beginning in 2009.

The conservation group’s report tracked online movement of the sale of ivory products, and found 7122 online auctions, advertisements and messages attempting to sell ivory. Ivory is of course the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus and walrus.

IFAW originally accused eBay as being the source for 83% of all ivory identified by investigators, and a total of 63% of all trade focused upon by the investigation. However, the IFAW also mentioned that a comprehensive tally of Ebay’s sales would raise that tally even higher.

"This demonstrates one of the key issues in global Internet trade: a strong policy without adequate enforcement is ineffective," the group said. "This very lack of policy enforcement may in fact make eBay the largest digital marketplace in the world for ivory that may violate national or international law or Web site policy."

While this story tends to stray a little more to the conservation angle than the tech angle, it is interesting to see the influence that the long standing conservation world has on the relatively new Internet industry.