As of today, the feed submission formerly in the Google Merchant Center has been replaced with Google Base submissions. Google Base was quietly launched 3 months ago, and currently offers free online classifieds service that allows anyone to list a product for sale.

Google Base is also arming itself with a reputation system like eBays, where merchants will accumulate vetting votes from its buyers.

Google Base replaces Froogle Merchant Center by ZDNet's Froogle Merchant Center is no longer -- it has been replaced by Google Base in what seems to be an attempt to merge the two data sources.

The grand plan is for Google Base to be a central hub of information. In some distant future, you will submit information for Google Co-op, Google Sitemaps, Google Book Search and Google Scholar through Google Base. Sounds like a Google will be aiming for a standard for feeds.