Why did eBay choose to go white over their yellow background?

Not that I liked the old yellow background, that was just straining on my eyes as well when I saw how the old site looked like. And I know their strategy was to make the change subtle. However, was there any reason for the change aside from the designer-of-the-day's preference?

Is a pure white background generally better (if the user preference is "light mode" that is)? Over say something with a lower color temperature.