Google Gives PayPal some Competition

 Christian Science Monitor

Shoppers browsing online for new designer sunglasses or that ultrathin cellphone have a new temptation: a speedy-looking blue shopping-cart icon offering to whisk them to a purchase.

Last month, Google, by far the most popular way to find things on the Internet (it processes about 45 percent of all searches), added Google Checkout to its burgeoning list of related products. By signing up, shoppers can quickly and painlessly (at least until the bill arrives!) click to buy anything where they see the Google Checkout shopping-cart symbol without entering their credit-card number or other information. Consumers can also keep track of what they’ve bought anywhere online in one place.

Google joins PayPal, a more full-service online- payment system owned by eBay, and others such as Bill Me Later, in offering an online “electronic wallet.” These companies argue such systems are safer than punching in credit-card numbers all over the Net. Both Google and PayPal act as an intermediary and don’t reveal the consumer’s full credit-card number to the merchant at the site of the purchase.