eBay Bans Google Checkouts

The latest big hubbub not involving blond newsreaders is that eBay has added Google Checkout to its Ars goes over the possible reasons for the decision (beyond the more obvious political/conspiracy ones):

Unlike PayPal, Google Checkout is not primarily a consumer-to-consumer (C2C) payments service. Google's new service appears to be focused primarily at small businesses while aiming at larger sites down the line. As it is currently situated, it's not going to turn into a C2C service anytime soon. There is no provision for sending payments to those without merchant accounts and no way to send money to an e-mail address, as is the case with PayPal. So why the hate from eBay? In perusing eBay's Accepted Payments Policy, Google Checkout would appear to meet criteria such as financial, privacy, and antifraud protection; not involving precious metals or other noncash services; and regulatory concerns. However, a couple of bullets point from eBay's list of criteria for who makes the cut stand out: "the identity, background and other business interests of the payment service sponsor" along with "whether the payment service has a substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services."