NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Online auction house eBay is discussing potential partnerships with Yahoo and Microsoft in response to a growing Google threat, according to a report published Friday.

Citing people familiar with the matter,The Wall Street Journal reported that eBay began discussions with Google's rivals last fall after the Internet search giant began encroaching on its different business divisions.

eBay (Research), a long-time partner with Google (Research), relied on the Mountain View, Calif.-based firm for driving traffic to its site and was one of Google's earliest search-based advertisers, according to the paper.

But that partnership became tainted after Google launched a product similar to eBay's online payment service PayPal and rolled out Google Base in October, a free online-classified ad service, which competes with eBay's main business, the newspaper said.

It is expected that if Microsoft (Research) or Yahoo (Research) secures a partnership with the online auction house, they would gain the right to display their clients' ads on millions of eBay auction pages and increase their advertising revenue from eBay itself, the paper reported.

The sources cited by the paper said that a deal is not certain with and that no date has been set for eBay to make a decision, and that it was unclear how much money would be involved.

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