On Tuesday, eBay announced it would be immediately banning all Confederate flags and items bearing the flag image. The move comes in the wake of the recent South Carolina shooting that left nine people dead at the Emanuel AME Church, a historic black church in Charleston.

The suspect, Dylann Roof, appeared in several pre-incident photos with the Confederate flag and left a racist manifesto online on his own website. On Tuesday, the governor of Virginia announced that it would begin the process of removing the optional Confederate battle flag from specialized license plates. And one day earlier, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called for it to be removed from the state capitol.

When Ars searched for "confederate flag" on eBay at 12:45pm Central Time, there were still 1,400 listings available. Just 15 minutes later, that number dropped to 1,388.

"We are taking action immediately and will first block new listings and notify sellers of current listings that their items will be removed by eBay," Johnna Hoff, an eBay spokeswoman, told Ars by e-mail. "As you can imagine, with a global marketplace of about 800 million items, removal will take some time. However, we are taking action today and beginning the process."

The company already bans most Nazi and Nazi-related items, but stamps, currency, and historically accurate model kits are accepted. eBay's policy on the matter states, "We don't allow items that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views. We'll also remove listings that graphically portray graphic violence or victims of violence, unless they have substantial social, artistic, or political value."