[Updated] eBay to exclude Google Checkout in favor of PayPal

Update: Don’t believe the hype.

This story has been reported in various places, and always incompletely. Let’s get it straight: eBay never allowed Google Checkout and is removing all other 3rd party solutions in favor of PayPal. We apologize for the confusion.

Members of the eBay using world take note: the massive online seller is doing away with Google Checkout integration next July. PayPal will become the singular ‘checkout’ service that will allowed on eBay’s platform.

eBay’s vice president of seller experience, Todd Lutwak, said that this will “give eBay buyers a consistent, speedy checkout experience and [will help] to ensure support for fast-growing sales via mobile platforms.” And of course it will make even more money for PayPal, an engine of growth unlike eBay itself.

While eBay does view PayPal as the strongest checkout solution (a sentiment that I echo) this move is far more competitive than functional. Google Checkout is a perfectly usable payment system, albeit one that has never found its legs. eBay wants to control online payments, and playing their home court advantage as hard as possible is a simple way to pursue that goal.

PayPal claims to be “the world’s most-loved way to pay and get paid.” That is even true in some parts of the world, but what is also now true come next July is that eBay is about to have a single real payments provider, something that dedicated Google Checkout users might not like.

The legal implications of this announced move are yet to be determined. It could be that the lead time into the exclusion of Google Checkout is to allow for complaint to be filed by either Google or the FTC, giving eBay time to renig on the idea if it becomes untenable.