Google party at eBay event will protest Checkout ban

Google is hosting a party at the eBay Live customer event in Boston on Thursday night for eBay sellers who are angry that eBay has forbidden merchants from offering Google Checkout as an online payment option.

The "Let Freedom Ring" Google party will be held in the Old South Meeting House in Boston, which was a key meeting place for participants in the American Revolution.

eBay and its PayPal unit added Google Checkout to its banned transaction provider list last summer, claiming that the service, which was launched in June 2006, did not have a proven track record and could not be trusted. eBay's move prompted several class action lawsuits, which have been consolidated. They allege that eBay's restricting of payment methods is anti-competitive and harms eBay merchants and sellers.

So far, more than 300 people have signed a petition asking eBay to allow merchants to offer Google Checkout to buyers on the eBay platform.

Benjamin Ling, head of Google Checkout, says there is no need for a ban on Checkout. It has been adopted by more than one quarter of the top 500 online retailers, is used by tens of thousands of stores in the U.S. and millions of customers, he says.

But eBay spokesman Hani Durzy says one year is not a long enough track record to prove that Google Checkout is trustworthy.