The accountants have taken over the Googleplex, once a hotbed of amiably unprofitable innovation. The notion that ads would pay the way for everything has been dropped — and "fee" is replacing "free."

eBay plans require its Australian buyers and sellers to complete all their transactions through its PayPal payments service. The only holdup? A 38-page, anonymous filing to an Australian regulatory agency, claiming the real purpose of eBay's rule change "is to substantially lessen competition in the Market for Online Payment Processing Services." The fighting-words filing isn't so anonymous anymore. An AuctionBytes reader discovered the 38-page PDF filing was created by Google.

Plumas Lake, California's Michael Sargent managed to roll a ton of pennies into a five-figure pay day by gaming E-Trade, Charles Schwab and Google Checkout customer verification systems in an ingenious scheme reminiscent of the one perpetrated by characters Peter, Michael and Samir in 1999's cubicle culture classic Office Space. Using aliases, including character names from Office Space director Mike Judge's cartoon King of the Hill, Largent used a script to sign up for new accounts and then collect the few cents used to verify his checking account information. In six months he managed to milk E-Trade and Schwab for over $50,000 according to Wired. And now he's indicted on charges of computer fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud. But while the Secret Service says he bilked Google Checkout for $8,225.29, he's not being indicted on charges related to that part of the plan. Granted, even if he doesn't have to return that money, he'll probably have to spend it on lawyers.

Google's collection of Web properties somtimes seem unconnected and disorganized. But there's a common thread between Print Ads, Audio Ads, TV Ads, Checkout, YouTube, Postini and DoubleClick. Can you guess what it is?

Why the frenzy of end-of-year redesigns at Google? Last week we noticed that Google was launching a new sidebar with Video and Products results. This evening, Google changed the "Products" button on its home page and search result pages to "Shopping."

Poor, deluded Meg Whitman. The eBay CEO is so out of touch with her customers' discontent that she brags to Bloomberg News about this fact: Less than half of the users of PayPal, eBay's online-checkout service, think it's "good." Granted, Google Checkout, the search engine's rival payment product, comes off less well. But Whitman should be distraught, not gleeful, at such low customer-satisfaction scores.