The NY Times is running a somewhat interesting piece charting the source of the Google online payment service rumor. The supposed service has come up in an investor meeting, and of course the WSJ broke the story last Friday. Further, SEW reported that Google registered the trademarked business name Google Payments Corporation. Merchants are reacting variously, from eagerness to participate (and getting no response from Google) to indifference. the Times article quotes Michael Golden of Homeclick as saying he didn't understand what advantages Google would bring to the table. Well, Google has a history of surprising us with innovation; one could easily have expressed jaded skepticism before Gmail was released. Besides, it's not innovation that necessarily counts here—it's promotional muscle. If Google establishes a new payment processing service with any kind of scale, it would repressent a new sales channel, not just a another mechanism for processing transactions. Merchants would be forced to participate.