incrediBILL - 10:11 pm on Sep 16, 2005 (gmt 0)

Google doesn't need to get into this merchant/processing business, but they surely like to explore the possibilities. PayPal is a cash cow for ebay and they've integrated it nicely into their ebay platform.

It makes perfect sense to me as Google accepts payments via AdWords and makes payments via AdSense that they can cut out the middlemen in the transaction processing and bump their earnings overnight.

I'm sure someone did a study on this and I'm sure the extra cash wasn't trivial, probably 7 figures saved just doing it themselves and they end up with a new marketable service to boot.