Google will now process merchant transactions for free through the end of 2007. That’s 13 months of free transaction processing, but not everyone thinks it’s a great idea (PayPal). I first found out about the change in USA Today, the most read newspaper in America, in an article titled “Google offer takes on PayPal.” The Official Google Checkout Blog also wrote about the change.

eBay chose not to comment in the USA Today story, but as one analyst points out,

Twenty-five percent of eBay’s profits come from PayPal, so any pricing pressure isn’t a positive.

Google has now signed up thousands of merchants, and expects to sign up even more. They won’t release customer numbers, but I expect that after the Christmas season many people will have tried the new payment method and found that it does cut down on the time it takes to conduct online transactions.