Unlike Craigslist or Kijiji, eBounties puts the buyers in charge.

While the Internet is full of sellers trying to dispose of their merchandises and prize possessions, buyers end up searching through pages and pages attempting to locate what they want. How is anyone supposed to find that needle with all those haystacks? Well, eBounties puts the onus on the public to get you what you want and offers a reward or a bounty as an incentive.

Ebounties is a free service, but pre-approved payment through PayPal is needed to confirm that the money is available when someone finds what you are looking for. The user will only pay for results.

Last week, Toronto-based eBounties launched in Canada, as well as the US, the UK, and Australia. Allowing users to tap into the collective knowledge of the crowd, the possibilities are endless. Scavenger hunting is a realistic job. Users browsing will not only help someone find a rare collectable or help a company find a suitable employee, they will also be making a little spending money.

Users can claim a bounty in a couple of ways. The first is by providing the exact knowledge, service, item or connection that a buyer is seeking; the second way is by connecting the buyer with someone else who has those knowledge, items or etc.

Headhunters, matchmakers, antique dealers and other traffickers of privileged information and connections garner a lot of money, yet they don’t have any special requirement. Ebounties is hoping to start a revolution, one that allows anybody with informative knowledge or highly touted items to make money.

Google searches don’t always yield the information we want, so the Canadian startup encourages users to be creative. One user offered a $15 bounty to anyone who can find a local nut-free Chinese restaurant, while a Toronto-based hypnosis centre offered $75 to anyone who can bring in new clients.