Back in February there were murmurs about something called GBuy, which was supposed to be Google’s response to PayPal. Jeff Jordan, the president of eBay’s PayPal unit, said that “It’s a very legitimate competitive threat. It’s hard not to pay attention to what Google is doing.”
Well, it seems that the murmurs have been resurrected with recent reports that Google may (or may not) be pushing for something called Google Checkout. Apparently, Googlecheckout.net, .org, and .info have all been registered to a company called DNStination, Inc., which just happens to be using Google’s registrar of choice, MarkMonitor. All of these domains were registered on May 25th.
Googlecheckout.com, however, has a different buyer and currently displays a parked page courtesy of GoDaddy. Close watchers of Google’s actions may be interested to see whether or not Google’s legal team will eventually decide to pursue the ownership of Googlecheckout.com.
Garett Rogers, a ZDNet blogger who keeps a close watch on Google, thinks that Google Checkout will be a shopping cart system that will allow sites to accept payment for their checkout items online. “The money site owners make will be deposited into a holding account at Google – just like AdSense works,” Rogers proposes.
It is interesting to think of how well Google Checkout would fit with Google Analytics as well. Rogers says that if this happens, “website owners can easily track with certainty how their AdWords campaign is directly affecting sales – right through the checkout process.”
Rogers goes on to note that Google has also registered googlemastercard.com, which could reveal their intentions of offering a MasterCard similar to PayPal’s ATM/Debit card.
There have also been reports that Google is already conducting a closed beta testing of Google Checkout.
Google’s apparent moves to combat PayPal could spell trouble for eBay. Just last week, Yahoo! and eBay announced an alliance that many perceived as a move to counter Google and Microsoft. However, if Google wants to move into PayPal’s territory it’s clear that they would have to offer better terms, which would mean that a possible pricing battle would occur between Google and PayPal. With eBay currently using PayPal, a pricing conflict could hurt the pockets of an already struggling eBay.
Sources:
http://www.internetfinancialnews.com/insiderreports/
featured/ifn-2-20060526YahooTheWinnerIneBayDeal.html
http://www.webpronews.com/financial/news/wpn-64-
20060529CheckOutGoogleCheckout.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/index.php?p=208
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/index.php?p=209
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