The Wall Street Journal is reporting (no pay wall) more details on Google’s online payment service, GBuy.
“But PayPal must now contend with Google. The Mountain View, Calif., Web-search giant, which has terrified Silicon Valley with its ability to quickly create new consumer products and services, is developing a rival service called GBuy. For the last nine months, Google has recruited online retailers to test GBuy, according to one person briefed on the service.GBuy will feature an icon posted alongside the paid-search ads of merchants, which Google hopes will tempt consumers to click on the ads, says this person. GBuy will also let consumers store their credit-card information on Google.“
This blog’s regular host, Ben Charny, reported on GBuy back in December, when the press referred to it as Google Wallet.
Besides being used for AdWords, GBuy would make an excellent addition to Google Base, which, for now, is just an innocuous warehouse for user-submitted information.
Ben Charny is on vacation. Publish.com‘s editor, Steve Bryant, is filling in on Google Watch until Ben returns.