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Another Google Tool To Take On PayPal?
An anonymous reader writes to mention a ZDNet post about another possible product in the grand Google vision. The product, Google Checkout, may be an attempt to go after PayPal. From the article: "Since we know Google is behind its registration, what is Google Checkout going to be? I think it will be a shopping cart system to help websites accept payment for their items online. The money site owners make will be deposited into a holding account at Google -- just like AdSense works. Isn't this starting to sound a lot like PayPal? Who knows, they could even offer a Google branded Mastercard "debit card" like PayPal's ATM/Debit Card -- after all, the domain googlemastercard.com is registered to Google too."
this would be great, I know from personal experience that running merchant systems is a major pain the neck. This particularly the case when you are a programmer trying to break into to the world of running your own business. Merchant and credit card systems that exist are really dev friendly and extremely expensive for the most part. The system I current use is propay.com just because it is so simplistic for my small site.
Paypal treats anyone outside the US like dirt, so it'd be great to have an alternative.
Think about what they'd have done if you *had* shipped that laptop. Would they have taken responsibility for their mistake? I doubt it. It's easy not to suck if you only look at the best case scenarios.
It's not just because they registered a domain. Google has announced it plans to create a checkout service to compete with Paypal. This is why Yahoo and Paypal just made a deal on May 25th to back each other.
"It's a time machine Napoleon, I bought it online."
I imagine they could act as a credit card processor.
i.e. when you want to checkout, you use a google checkout page.
I am reminded of the yahoo store checkout pages.
Of course some vendors would want their own checkout, and this introduces a new form of fraud
as you stated. Where only Google loses in this case. (Compared to click fraud where both
Google (in reputation and refunds) and the customer loses.)
Lots of smaller sites that sell stuff use paypal (think indie bands, etc). Lots of not-selling-stuff-sites accept Paypal donations.
Uh oh. Dilbert's been talking about this very thing recently. scary.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
TFA explains the procedure needed to legally ship guns across state lines. It isn't fun, but it's legal.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Unless they become the replacement for both ebay and paypal.
Ebay's become a cesspool anyhow, with severely overrated shipping costs ($50 shipping with a $1 item still shows the item as $1 in the listings), people selling "how buy get a cheap X" crap, and much more. The days of low-bid bargains seem to have gone past, and the present reality is that you have to do a lot of searching just to find the real item.