eBay bans Google Checkout

eBay has banned its customers from using Google Checkout, according to its accepted payments policy.

Accepted payment services include Canadian Tire Money and Cash2India, but not nearly 40 others including Google Checkout, which analysts see as a rival to eBay's PayPal.

"Safety and convenience are at the core of eBay's policies toward payments," the policy statement says. "This policy is designed to promote safe online shopping, and to encourage online payment methods that are safe, easy to use, reliable, and offer high levels of protection for users."

eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said Google Checkout was added to the prohibited payment services list on Thursday primarily because it is so new and untested.

Among the factors considered "is whether the payment service has a substantial historical track record," he said. "I won't say that's the only reason, but I will say that is a factor in evaluating payment services...Google Checkout is, what, a week old?! At this point we're saying it does not meet the factors needed to allow it as an accepted payment."

ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo's eBay Strategies blog criticized the Google Checkout ban on his blog Thursday.

"It will be interesting to see what lame excuse eBay uses to justify this," he wrote. "For example, they will probably say it's new so prone to fraud. Well, in reality it's a credit card gateway (and the same one eBay spends millions with as the top google adwords user) and credit cards are specifically allowed along with gateways (verisign/cybersource/authorize.net, etc.)"