Google Out of the Traps in Pay Service Race

Search engine Google has launched its payment service Google Checkout in the UK.

The new service will compete with both the mainstream card processing services used by many online retailers and auction site eBay’s Paypal service.

It aims to boost Google’s main source of revenue, the selling of online adverts, by offering cheap order processing for its advertisers.

Google said that Checkout, which until now has only been available in the US, aims to offer a more complete service to buyers and sellers. But the company was unwilling to say when the service might expand into the rest of Europe.

Google’s dominance of the search market has led it to revenues of US$7.1bn in 2006 – not to mention the evolution of its name into a synonym for internet searches.

Even so, its other services have yet to make anything like as much of a splash in market share terms.

Rumours were rife about a Google payments service – dubbed “GBuy” by bloggers – well ahead of Checkout’s US launch in June 2006.

Much of the speculation concentrated on whether Google could use its search muscle to produce a “Paypal killer”, to rival the way that eBay has used its dominant presence in online auctions to help drive Paypal’s reach.

(c) 2007 The Journal – Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.