• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, May 27, 2011

Amid efforts to offer its own mobile payment system, Google is being sued by PayPal over claims it misappropriated trade secrets from its mobile-payment business. "Osama Bedier, a former PayPal executive now at Google, stole PayPal's confidential information," reports Bloomberg, citing a lawsuit filed by the company on Thursday.

What's more, "Stephanie Tilenius, another ex-PayPal executive now at Google, violated contractual obligations by recruiting Bedier," PayPal claims. Bedier "is now leading Google's efforts to bring point of sale technologies and services to retailers on its behalf," according to the complaint. "Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google and to major retailers."

Regarding Google's just-unveiled mobile payment plans, paidContent writes: "Now it looks like another big player in the payment-processing market is seeking to crash that party, and not in a fun way."

"Today's announcement is another early salvo in what will be a long and hard-fought battle to change consumers' payment behavior and, as a potential result, the makeup of the payments landscape," Forrester analyst Charles Golvin tells the Associated Press.

For its part, "PayPal, which is on track to become bigger than its parent company eBay over the next few years, is quickly expanding as it sees opportunities in mobile and other alternative payment options," reports All Things Digital. "It plans to have in-store trials by the end of this year."

"Large companies often sue former employees -- mostly out of spite -- without much success," writes GigaOm. "But this time around PayPal is serious, as the company feels these former executives threaten its future business."