eBay v. Google continued: Monier leaving?

Om Malik has word, as yet unconfirmed, that Louis Monier, eBay�s director of the advanced technology group, is leaving the San Jose online auction company, and joining Google — apparently to help with Froogle.

(Update 6/23: Move confirmed by Battelle, who talked with Monier)

Google declined to comment to Om, and eBay hasn’t yet responded. Monier, of course, was the guy behind AltaVista, one of the more popular search engines in the early days. We’re (Michael, at least) on the eBay trail this week, so we may weigh on this later. But here’s our story (or here) that ran Monday about the eBay nation being put to the test, and here’s our post yesterday about eBay CEO Whitman’s response to the Google Wallet rumors.