The user might have received the one pixel "trap" cookie, but the article says they were watching to see users who only visited 1 page, since "normal" users click around and look at a few pages. If you only get the hidden pixel once, that's a sign you aren't normal.
It will be interesting to see how this goes in court since you cannot prove that any given single user was NOT a "real" user. But on the whole, the traffic smells wrong.
I don't understand why eBay didn't just ban the users when they suspected foul play. Trying to prove this criminally beyond a reasonable doubt would have been hard.
