eBay acquires recommendation engine Hunch

E-commerce and online payment giant eBay announced on Monday that it has acquired New York-based technology startup Hunch, an online platform that delivers customized recommendations to users based on their individual tastes. Hunch's team and expertise in areas like machine learning, data mining and predictive modeling are expected to help eBay to integrate more advanced recommendations into its website, said the San Jose, California-based company. "Unlike traditional online retail approaches, Hunch will enable eBay to move beyond standard item-to-item recommendations and use a broader variety of members' online tastes and interests to suggest new and interesting items for them to browse and buy on eBay," said the company in a press release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Technology news site TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington said in his personal blog prior to the acquisition announcement that eBay would acquire Hunch for 80 million U.S. dollars. Hunch, co-founded by popular photo-sharing service Flickr co- founder Caterina Fake with an 11-person team of MIT graduates, was open to the public in 2009. According to eBay, Hunch's employees will remain with the company in New York.