Google Chief Eric Schmidt responded to criticism that Google's forthcoming payment service, dubbed "GBuy," resembles eBay's PayPal, the Web's most popular online payment service. When asked about GBuy
at a recent conference, Schmidt denied its similarity to PayPal, saying: "It makes no sense for us to go into businesses that are occupied by existing leaders...We want to solve new problems in the
payments space." Schmidt confirmed the service--which had been discussed in an investment analyst's research note but not officially announced or even given a name--but offered no details, Reuters
said. Interestingly, the report claims that Schmidt said the system would be targeted to advertisers and not general consumers; this would make it entirely different from PayPal, which is used for
consumer transactions. Perhaps Google wants to devise an automated, universal ad brokering system? Jordan Rohan, the Capital Markets analyst who wrote that research note, said Schmidt's cryptic
remarks hide what he thinks will be a very similar system to eBay: "A merchant-to-consumer payments system" that keeps user-data the Web giant could use to target searches better.
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