Wall Street gossips tell us that Apple (AAPL) executives have dropped hints suggesting the company is considering creating a service that would allow iTunes Store account holders to use those accounts to make purchases on participating third-party sites across the Internet.

Remember, this is Wall Street gossip and not confirmed news. But you want to be in the loop, right?

Anyway, such a service would make Apple a direct competitor to eBay's PayPal (EBAY) and Facebook's still-in-testing, rumored-to-be-huge "Pay With Facebook" platform.

iPhone users can already use their iTunes accounts to buy some virtual and subscription goods in third-party iPhone applications. That service charges developers 30% per transaction though. For a PayPal rival from Apple to take off on the rest of the Internet -- from Amazon.com to www.PipersKiltOfInwood.com, that cut would have to come way down.

Another reason we're skeptical that these plans will come to fruition, is that generally, Apple only comes out with products that help it drive hardware sales. We came up with two theories as to how to address this problem:

Our gossiper specifically said it was not discussed, but maybe this is Apple's first step toward becoming a way for people to pay for goods offline. As consumers, we'd love this. No more waiting for the bartender to ring you up!

Maybe Apple sees PayPal for what is: an unwieldy clunker of a service that missed its chance. Maybe Apple sees the online payments business as low-hanging fruit -- an easy way to diversify its business. Apple computer sales growth has slowed a bit, and executives may worry the company depends too much on its iPhone/iPod biz.

Or both ideas could be wrong, along with our gossiper -- who is, after all, a gossiper.

We're hoping he's not, if only because we'd relish a new, meaningful competition over something besides search. A battle between eBay, Apple, and Facebook over payments could prime innovation and help develop non-ad-supported businesses on the Internet.