Google has cancelled a party planned around its Checkout online payment system after pressure from eBay.
The search giant on Monday announced the bash would be held this evening on the fringes of eBay’s own Live event in Boston.
But that appears to have ruffled feathers with the auction site, which operates its own payment processing outfit, Checkout competitor PayPal, leading eBay to stop placing AdWords ads via Google, Valleywag reported.
The tech gossip site quoted a Deutsche Bank analyst as saying Google’s party, due to be held on the site of the Boston Tea Party in what the company said was a move toward “freedom” and “alternatives”, was a “truly retaliatory” move.
Tom Oliveri of the Google Checkout team last night wrote a follow-up blog post:
“eBay Live attendees have plenty of activities to keep them busy this week in Boston, and we did not want to detract from that activity.
“After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference.”
No alternative date was given. Google and eBay had last year inked a deal under which they would share revenue from click-to-call Google Ads placed by eBay merchants.