eBay at Home on the Ropes

What a rough week for eBay.

The e-commerce cum online-payment cum Internet communication company is back in one of its periodic slumps where, in the eyes of the world at large, it just can't do anything right.

The albatross around eBay's neck this time is Google's Checkout, the latest offering from the search giant in its never-ending quest for new sources of revenue. As it stands now, Google Checkout seems simply to be an online venue to store your credit card information, with Google's assurance that it will be secure.

This has been coming for well over a year, ever since Google executives hinted at an online-payment service that the press quickly dubbed "the PayPal killer." Investors began predicting a collision between Google and eBay, with Google the odds-on winner. eBay's stock swooned but later recovered. ...