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After months of speculation, the arrival of GBuy would mark the beginning of a long-expected battle between two Silicon Valley giants whose collaboration helped the Internet to develop into a thriving commercial arena.

``It could be a game-changer,'' Jordan Rohan of RBC Capital Markets wrote in a note to clients on Friday morning.

Mountain View-based Google has raked in billions of dollars from merchants who find customers by purchasing ads on the top-ranked search engine. San Jose-based eBay, the most popular online marketplace, has been one of Google's best customers.

But as online commerce has matured and the two companies have sought to expand their audiences, they have begun to look like competitors. Google's GBuy would offer some of the same features as PayPal, which allows people to send and receive payments online and charges a transaction fee.

Last month, eBay announced an alliance with Yahoo, the most visited Internet site, that analysts said positioned the two Internet giants to better compete against Google. In the deal, Yahoo agreed to feature PayPal on its Web sites and eBay agreed to display Yahoo advertising.

Rohan said GBuy would be launched June 28. The service will let people who post items for sale on Google Base -- a giant online database of listings -- use GBuy to accept payment. In addition, small e-commerce sites could choose GBuy as a payment method.

Rohan said the service would be free at first and then would charge a per-transaction fee ranging from 1.5 percent to 2 percent, or slightly less than PayPal. PayPal has become popular with small merchants with scant credit history, who would have to pay more to accept credit card payments.

PayPal's sales were $335 million during the quarter that ended in March, 24 percent of eBay's total sales.

Google said Friday that it had nothing new to announce. ``Billing and payments have historically been a part of Google's advertising programs and online services,'' a company statement said.

Amanda Pires, a spokeswoman for PayPal, said the payments service has faced competition ``throughout our entire history.'' With 105 million accounts, ``we feel really good about our position,'' she said.

Google's leaders have repeatedly said they want to improve online search -- not compete with eBay as an online marketer.

But John Aiken, an analyst at Majestic Research, said the payment service would provide Google with data that would enable the Mountain View company to more accurately target ads to people who are ready to make a purchase.

By tracking online shoppers from the moment they start looking for something to buy to the moment they reach into their virtual wallets, Google will be able to figure out both the most propitious purchasing time and the most promising products, Aiken said.

``GBuy has the potential to be as important to Google as Google Maps or Google News, and there is very little that competitors can do to thwart its success,'' Aiken wrote.

Skip McGrath, an experienced eBay seller, said Google's initiative was good news for eBay merchants. ``EBay needs some competition,'' said McGrath, who has just published ``Titanium eBay: A Tactical Guide to Becoming a Millionaire PowerSeller.''

But Robert Holmes, a Los Angeles detective who has tracked intellectual property criminals on eBay and elsewhere, said Google shouldn't underestimate the challenges it would face in starting a payment system.

``Right now all Google is, is a conduit to other people's data. If you start branching into other people's money, you really are branching into something that is completely new and foreign,'' he said. ``It's a separate business. It's like running a bank.''

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