Google closed the trading day today with quite a lift, its shares up to $417.81, a decently dramatic rise of $11.70 or 2.88% over Wednesday's close. With the release of Google Checkout today, it has already won a major ally in the e-commerce world, and that ally is ChannelAdvisor. With everyone from eBay's PayPal unit to Amazon.com looking at the launch of Google Checkout, one thing is for certain: Google is most certainly sticking to its promise of launching products early and often. The Internet search giant has been on a tear recently, launching a new product every other week it seems.

Meanwhile, back in Metropolis -- that is, in a European Metropolis -- Google is winning a court case in Germany regarding the Google Book Search project, it's losing another case in France regarding a Google AdSense copyright violation on trademarked words owned by upscale bagmaker Louis Vuitton. One of the more frequent occurrences I can see in the future is anyone and everyone starting to sue Google for, well, every little thing that the Internet search giant does. It seems not too many people like a winner (as in Google), so expect the floodgates to continue pouring in with lawyers and plaintiffs.

Google Checkout, just unveiled today (this morning) after much rampant speculation about the name and features of what was previously rumored as "Google GBuy", has already recruited ChannelAdvisor as a fully-supported partner -- support that was already in place apparently, as the ChannelAdvisor support partnership was announced simultaneously with the public announcement of the availability of Google Checkout.

ChannelAdvisor is the leading supplier of channel management solutions and partners with such e-commerce leading companies like eBay, Amazon.com, Overstock.com and Shopping.com to ensure the millions of retailers selling products and services over the web can visibility into where most consumers turn for online purchases.

The fact that ChannelAdvisor was immediately available to use Google Checkout upon its release is a very large testament to the faith in Google's new online transaction product. Is Google Checkout a "PayPal killer" as has been widely reported? At this time, I just don't see that. PayPal has such a huge lead and integrates bank accounts (Google Checkout only processes credit cards) and it will take Google Checkout a while to come close. But, as always, it's great to have competition in the online transaction industry -- PayPal has too much of a stranglehold as is.