Welcome to the debut of eBay Watch. Every Friday, ECommerce-Guide.com will highlight various and unusual listings, important eBay announcements, new/updated developer and other eBay-related tools and software. We will also occasionally feature eBay Store owner profiles.

What's Hot This Week on Bay?
More than 500 million votes were cast during the fourth season of American Idol. It came down to the wire between country sweetheart Carrie Underwood and southern rocker Bo Bice. America picked Underwood and already her fame is taking shape in odd ways.

At the same time, originality began to wane on eBay. How so? Well, after the successful auctioning off of a grilled cheese Virgin Mary and Georgian runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks toast (each purchased for roughly $15,000 by the online casino Golden Palace), Underwood's "likeness" appeared not once, not twice, but four times on burnt toast auctions on eBay this week.

One comedic auctioneer said, "While watching Idol tonight, right before Ryan Seacrest announced this season's winner, I popped a piece of bread into the toaster, when it emerged just several minutes later I noticed that the portrait of American Idol finalist Carrie Underwood mysteriously appeared on my toast just as she was named the winner!"

One seller, who started bidding at $1,000 was generous enough to throw in free shipping. See for yourself: Carrie Underwood Toast Auctions

Our guess is that this marks the end of profitable toast auctions. We already scrapped our plans on selling potential Indy 500 winner Danica Patrick's face on a piece of wheat toast next week.

Another interesting auction we spotted this week comes from a mother with a great sense of humor. eBay seller "fullmoon intimates," of Florida, discovered an unusual item in her children's animal cracker box about a year ago.

"My kids love animal crackers and one day we were sitting in front of the TV having a snack. I reached in to the box of animal crackers and I noticed that two were stuck together. When I looked at them I started laughing, my kids kept asking, 'mommy what's so funny?' I finally pulled myself together and showed them the crackers, still they asked 'Mommy what's so funny?' so I had to tell them they were stuck together and it looked like they were dancing. My oldest son who was 4 at the time insisted we keep them," she wrote.

Does American Idol Carrie Underwood like butter or jam? If you are the winning bidder, you make the call. (eBay photo)

Believe it or not, as of 10 a.m. EDT Friday, the highest bid was $125.50.

For those seeking even more laughs, head over to this auction's question page.

eBay News
Dan Levy, director of Consumer Protections for eBay, announced on Thursday the expansion of PayPal seller protection for international transactions. According to Mr. Levy, sellers have long requested that the PayPal Seller Protection Policy (SPP) be extended to international transactions.

"I'm pleased to announce that we will be expanding SPP in mid-June to cover U.S., U.K. and Canada sellers who ship to confirmed addresses in the U.S., U.K. and Canada," he posted on eBay's Announcement page.

Levy said PayPal is expanding its efforts to confirm buyers' addresses to support this initiative.

On May 18, eBay notified its users that it has finally addressed the problem of slow loading search pages. Users have been complaining for over a year about the slow downloading of search results, especially those users who are still on dial up connections.

Finally, eBay announced it was adding new features to users' sign-in pages beginning last week to include important announcements and to notify users when their accounts need to be updated. eBay has been criticized for not being proactive enough about notifying users of site or account changes.