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The world's most popular online auctioneer has attempted to atone for one of the most heavily criticized acquisitions in recent memory, selling off an asset that was once projected – but failed – to revolutionize its core business.

EBay Inc. EBAY-Q has sold 65 per cent of its stake in Skype Technologies – the wildly popular Internet phone company – for $1.9-billion (U.S.). With the sale, eBay loses majority control of a business that has seen its revenue and customer base skyrocket in recent years.

Skype allows users to make voice and video calls over the Internet, using technology based on the popular and cheap peer-to-peer networks common in Internet file-sharing applications. Because the transmission of data over such networks is relatively cheap, Skype allows users to make Internet-based calls for free. Users can also make Skype calls from land lines and cellphones, usually at cheaper rates than most traditional service providers offer. In the seven years since its inception, Skype has become extremely popular with students and customers who make lots of overseas calls.

EBay paid $2.1-billion when it bought Skype in 2005, but additional shareholder perks eventually pushed the final price tag to more than $3-billion. Analysts slammed the purchase, saying the price was far too high. The company's justification of the acquisition – that Skype's technology would allow eBay's buyers and sellers to communicate directly with each other – was also met with skepticism.

That expected synergy never materialized, and Skype instead functioned largely independent of eBay's core business. Two years after buying the company, eBay took a $900-million writedown on the purchase.

In April of this year, the company went a step further, announcing plans to spin off Skype in an initial public offering in 2010, in effect letting the corporate world know the unit was up for grabs. But instead of an IPO, eBay has found a group of buyers willing to take the majority of Skype right now (eBay will retain control of the remaining 35 per cent).

“We've acted decisively on a deal that delivers a high valuation, gives us significant cash up front and lets us retain a meaningful minority stake with talented partners,” eBay president and chief executive officer John Donahoe said in a statement Tuesday. “Skype is a strong standalone business, but it does not have synergies with our e-commerce and online-payments businesses.”

Skype has seen its revenue and users increase significantly in the past few years. In 2008, it generated revenue of $551-million, a 44-per-cent increase from the previous year. The number of Skype users climbed about 47 per cent during the same period, to more than 405 million. EBay's own projections put Skype's total revenue in 2011 at more than $1-billion.

But given Skype's potential, the company that was once criticized for overpaying is now facing criticism for selling too soon. “It's a short-term win for eBay, but I think after the dust settles it may not be in their shareholders' best interest,” said Ronald Gruia, principal telecom analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

“They might have been able to fetch more with an IPO,” he said, adding that he believes Skype's new majority owners will likely be more patient.

Among the groups making the purchase is a London-based venture capital firm called Index Ventures, one of Skype's earliest supporters. That relationship could prove useful in solving a legal hurdle that may have scuttled previous attempts by eBay to sell Skype.

As part of the 2005 deal to buy the company, eBay's then-CEO Meg Whitman allowed Skype's co-founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, to retain ownership of the core technology behind Skype's service. The two used that technology to start a new company, Joltid, which is currently embroiled in a legal battle with eBay over rights to the same core technology. Ending that legal uncertainty will likely prove key to attracting more buyers for any subsequent attempts to sell all or part of Skype.

But for now, eBay's sale of the popular service ends one of the most awkward corporate marriages in the tech world – a divorce apparently welcomed by both sides.

“[The sale] means we're back to being a fully independent company again, but with a new group of owners who believe passionately in our mission and in the ability of our team to deliver on it,” Skype president Josh Silverman said in a blog posting Tuesday. “I can't wait.”