It looks as if Internet colossus Google is getting into the payment provider business. The Wall Street Journal reported that the new payment systems would be launched this year in an attempt to compete with eBay’s Paypal. Google also hopes to become less dependent on advertising revenue, which at present makes up nearly all of the company’s earnings. The Journal also mentioned sources close to the company as confirming the report. Google itself has remained quiet on the matter with only a vague promise on its website to improved online payment options for some services.(Editor’s Note: Top Ten Wholesale specializes on delivering content like wholesale business services. )The Wall Street Journal quoted sources saying it would be similar to Paypal. Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chief Executive, denies the upcoming payment system is a PayPal competitor, proposing instead that Google’s version is aimed at conquering “new problems in e-commerce.” He denied specifically that it would be “a person-to-person stored-value payments system.” It is even unclear what the service will be called though some have suggested Google Wallet. What is certain is that in May the company filed papers in California for The Google Payment Corporation.If it’s not a “person-to-person stored value system,” which just means that the money transfers from PayPal account to PayPal account with PayPal making money off of the passage from one to the other, what is it exactly? Many have speculated that it is a micropayment system, which would allow for very small payments to access web content, for instance multimedia files. Often the producer of this rich content can’t adequately broadcast it because the costs associated with mass distribution of big downloads are significant, and outside of subscription models, there’s no effective way to sell it online. A micropayment system could solve several glaring problems for content sites. The New York Times could charge you a dime to read an article, Scott McCloud could charge you twenty cents to read his comics. Of course, McCloud is already doing that using technology developed by BitPass.Google certainly has every reason to take on Paypal. First off Paypal makes lots of money. In the first quarter of this year Paypal made just over $233 million dollars and represented nearly a quarter of eBay’s take during that time. (Auction leader eBay paid $1.3 billion for Paypal in 2002.) Secondly, recently Paypal has shown weaknesses that make it an appealing target for competition. Certainly others have tried, Yahoo tried and failed with their PayDirect program a few years ago. However, none have had with even a fraction of Google’s money or presence on the web.A curious aspect of this is that eBay is one of Google’s biggest advertisers. It seems unlikely that eBay will have any other choice than to continue spending millions of dollars with a company coming after a cornet stone of their business.Prospective Google customers hoping for the information they need to make decisions about their businesses can only wait and hope. It is possible that with the barrage of public and media attention that Google will release more details regarding the finer points of their new effort.Art Mickelwraith is the author of the Wholesale Buyer’s Guide at TopTenWholesale.com. He can be reached at artmicklewraith@gmail.com.