Google is poised this week to launch an online electronic payment service similar to eBay's PayPal, according to a report in today's
Wall Street Journal.
Rumors of the service, GBuy,
have surfaced before, but today's report includes new details about pricing and integration
with Google's core search business.
The product reportedly will work in conjunction with AdWords, so that consumers who visit a merchant's site after doing a Google search will have the
option of going to a separate, GBuy checkout site. Google plans to charge merchants a 2.2 percent commission, in addition to a fee of 30 cents per transaction--but will also offer a discount to
AdWords advertisers.
GBuy, an obvious challenge to eBay, is expected to come just several weeks after Google took on Microsoft in the software realm with a Web-based spreadsheet application.
These moves by Google, combined with its clear lead
in search (currently, the company accounts for about half of all
searches), have eBay, MSN and Yahoo fighting to keep up.
So far, eBay and Yahoo recently struck a deal calling for Yahoo ads on eBay and PayPal on Yahoo, but it's not at all clear that an
eBay/Yahoo combination will be enough to challenge Google.
Will a Yahoo-MSN merger be next? It's not at all clear whether Yahoo--a longstanding independent company--will want to join the
Microsoft empire, but predictions of such a deal will surely increase once Google has officially launched GBuy.