Slashdot Mirror
Google to Test PayPal Rival
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Google is set to introduce a test version of its GBuy online-payment service as early as this week, presaging a shake-up in the online-payments market now dominated by eBay's PayPal, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Here is how the service will work: Consumers who search for items like "shoes" or "strollers" on Google's search site will see text ads with a symbol or icon designating advertisers that accept GBuy payments. Shoppers normally would have clicked on an ad and been linked to that merchant's Web site. Now, while they will still be linked to the merchant's site, they will go through a different checkout process integrated with Google if they choose GBuy for their transaction. Details of the service could still change before Google's official GBuy announcement.'"
but seriously, don't you think they've begun to seriously overextend themselves, as well as take on a sort of microsoft-borg-ish nature, assimilating anything and everything it encounters?
After hearing stories about people having their funds frozen with no legal means to get it back, I decided I didn't want anything to do with PayPal. I didn't miss eBay one bit, but I used to buy parts on web boards, and everyone there used PayPal.
I hope GBuy will be less evil, and that it will catch on so I can buy used PC and car parts from forum members again.
Blar.
I for one welcome my...
Jeez, is there anything these guys won't get there fingers in? Don't get me wrong, I like what they've done so far, but is it possible for a company to expand beyond a certain critical mass and still stick to the operating principle "Don't Be Evil"?
I just hope the Geegees aren't going to turn nasty and suddenly warrant a big anti-monopoly order or somesuch. I just couldn't take the smug look on Bill's face...
Meta will eat itself
GBuy *will* be less evil. It's hard to be more evil than PayPal, and we're talking about a company who believes in not evil.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I run a web store on the side, and if GBuy can come up with the same type of merchant rates that PayPal can, I'm completely sold. I've never been screwed by PayPal (yet), but I've heard the horror stories.
As some of you know, this is perfect for what they are just testing: commissions advertising (aka affiliate stuff).
This would nicely prevent frauds, as the payments will go thru google, a advertiser cannor report 0 sales even if sales was made. This would remove one cheating possibility, where as AdSense currently is plagued with click fraud, there won't be such a problem with this type of advertising.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
As it stands now, the service seems more of a communal shopping cart than an actual payment system. That might be all well and good for certain sites, but the beauty of PayPal is its flexibility; for all intents and purposes, PayPal is a quick n' easy substitute for an online point-of-sale system. You can pretty much customize it for your individual needs. You don't need to use PayPal's shopping cart, you can use a different one (or even develop your own).
I can see this fitting in well with their AdWords/AdSense system, but beyond that I don't see this as significant competition for PayPal.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
I actually haven't had any problems with PayPal. The one time they froze my account it was because I'd made an unusually large purchase with my PayPal debit card, and they froze it just in case my card had been stolen. One five-minute phone call later, and everything was back to normal. I give them a little slack on the security front; they're doing their damndest to be reliable and secure, and a lot of the horror stories I've heard have been overexaggerated.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
Considering the insane rates they charge for ads, I'm sure their fees will be just as "evil" as PayPals. And that's all merchants _should_ really care about.
Oh, and the fact that if you DON'T pay Google, you'll get zero visitors. Becasue of course, ads and fake sites are the first 3 pages.
All hail our search Mafia overlords.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Thanks, I'll be here all week, try the veal!
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
Its about time. this market has been stagnent and monopolized for too long by the shoddy
offerings of PayPal.Time for PayPal to trim the fat and get the finger out.
If Gbuy would support micropayments, that would be groundbreaking! I have plenty of stuff to sell in the $1 range, but no economical way to do it!
The other big question would be whether Ebay will allow people to pay with Gbuy!
I have been WAITING eagerly for a real competitor to paypal. the amount of guff you have to put up with from the paypal corp is just too much! and the ONLY reason they get away with it is because there is no competition.
;(
my last horror story re: paypal was when I bought an online ebay item and there was no option to have shipping done (from this vendor) with insurance. the item was mailed 'media mail' which is UNCONFIRMED. the PO considers it confirmed delivery but the postman HIMSELF signs the delivery receipt! what good is that?? so my mailmain supposedly delivered it and signed for it himself. of course I never got the pkg.
I emailed the seller and no reply. he had 'confirmation' from the PO and so ignored me. I filed a case with the PO but they didn't really care (obviously). I tried calling paypal (emailing them, first) and they kept saying 'it was delivered so your claim is rejected'.
problem was: there was NO HUMAN looking at this so-called delivery receipt. the date was wrong (it was the wrong DECADE, too - what a blunder in their database!) and there was no signature online to prove it really did get delivered. it was a losing battle to explain this to them. they didn't care. they are on the side of the 'power sellers' and they know where their money is earned
if they think they can accept delivery confirmations that say "1900" as the year and then close my case, well, I hope they get some cosmic justice for all the scams and abuse from their customers. I hope google eats them alive.
the more powerful google gets, the more I do worry; but paypal needs to have some humble pie fed to them. its about time.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Google could snatch the market from paypal if they offered this service in the same manner they offer all their other services and goodies: for free. They'd benefit from this in the same way, good branding and promotion of their search engine which would ultimately trickle down into advertising profits. Also, Wall Street regards eBay and friends as a threat to Google, so hurting companies like paypal could increase shareholder wealth, possibly enough to offset the cost of handing this service out for free.
Don't try to accept or send payment for *anything* firearm related with paypal. Quick way to get your account frozen with no recourse...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Will they enter Poland? Or other countries where Paypal does half-assed attempts to do enter, but doesn't really dare?
I mean, currently there's no way I could sell stuff from Poland to other countries. The item mailing fee is okay. But any payments from outside, no matter how small, are associated with money transfer fee like $40-60. Or $200 if you pay when you get the item. Nobody's gonna buy $10 item and pat $60 for sending the $10 to me. They could send it in envelope... almost assuring some bastard in the polish mail service stealing it. Or they could send me some gift I don't need instead.
Paypal is present in Poland, of course. But it works one-way. I can pay through Paypal, but I can't receive money. I really hope Google kicks in and I finally can sell stuff outside Poland.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Why is it so impossible to have paypal or other online bill pay regulated. I mean is it that hard to make paypal a real bank so they are held accountable. Is it that hard to be fdic insured and have a real phone number with real people on the other end, not some fax back service. Hell id love to have a bank of paypal or other online site i could walk to and cash my checks at and do my very small business stuff.
The only nice thing to say about Google is that the backend security software should be "beta". Unlike a lot of real financial service providers who backend sercurity is "non-sxistent" (i.e., unencrypted backup hard drives lost in transit).
On the earth, all your lives belong to Google...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Considering that eBay more or less has Paypal integrated into it? And where I suspect a large majority of Paypal transactions take place is to satisfy eBay transactions? While I've done a few non-eBay-related Paypal transactions, they are very few. I've used more online stores that took my credit card directly than Paypal (and a few of those stores offered Paypal - I paid Visa).
GBuy sounds like it'll be a rival for Amazon zShops and other style system, except less centralized.
I'm going to create my own currency to compete with the US dollar.
Seriously, competition is good and all, but why? It's success hinges on EVERYONE using it, and EVERYONE already uses Paypal. Even if it's just a little better, is it worth the trouble of switching? Methinks it would have to be revolutionary to replace an existing system, and even then, I'm banking on a lot of laziness and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" type of mentalities.
Google are to release 'GOxygen' to rival breathing.
I remember when Google just did a great search engine.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Ok, so who gets to be the first state Attorney General to file an anti-competitive lawsuit over all this bundling?
look, competition is good. Who else is going to go up against ebay and paypal, and it isn't as if you can't use a different search engine/webmail/whatever. You never know, someone may come up with a search engine which classifies and ranks results for the individual by some other bayesian/statistical/AI algorithm which turns out to be way better than Google.
Deleted
Sorry for the Subject, but thats the name of the web page with lot of interesting info on Why dont use PayPal anymore.
Check it PayPal Sucks
Google has the AdSense thing, that makes GBuy really interesting for advertisers who (IMO) will not doubt for support GBuy if they are advertising with Google...
Now must be good for the users/buyers, i want to test it.
Rock and Roll
Google, as a publicly traded company only has one real obligation: ROI to stockholders
I totally dig Google but I wonder ultimately where they are headed. Bowing to China and return on investment being what it is to a publicly traded company, one has to wonder when the day will com when Google's mantra becomes "We do less evil than everyone else".
You know it's coming..... I normally am the first to jump on the new Google stuff but I think the time is coming soon to stop feeding this one beast and spread it around just to diversify.
How long until Google goes after Ebay and makes its own online auction site?
I need to ask: So will users be saying 'G'day' or 'G'bye' to PayPal?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Google could make a real boom if it supported more countries and made itself a more diverse market. I know it's a problem with banking and tax laws but there's money to be made with it :)
-- Sig down
...competition in areas such as consumer goods, services, and other non-utility items results in a net benefit for both the consumer and the market.
Don't believe me? Look at cell phone manufacturers (not service providers). How many producers are on the market; how many different types of cell phones there are, and the fact that customers have the choice of going to one phone over another simply by buying a new phone and replacing the SIM card.
How about other services such as credit cards or financial institutions such as a bank? People have the choice as to where they want their money to go, and therefore, competition between these companies works to the advantage of the consumer.
To take a page from the 'Lending Tree' folks, "When banks* compete, you win"
*or any other producing company. Gas, electricity, and phone services excluded.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
In the case of microsoft, there was no viable competing desktop OS. By having a de facto monopoly on the desktop, they were unfairly leveraging that space for their gain. The key here is that you couldn't just go use another OS. In Google's case, there are lots of other search engines out there, and Google isn't (effectively) required to get your computer to run. I'd agree if you said that Google was levveraging their mindshare to launch "me too" products. However, in the case of the marketplaces they've entered, they appear to be providing competition in areas with medium/large barriers to entry. As a consumer, I think that's a good thing.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It just updates the strength of a few neural network connections. Just you wait. It knows what you're up to.
Deleted
As far as I know, the ad prices are determined entirely by what advertisers bid for them, rather than being rates that Google sets.
Even if you do accept the ad prices as being "evil", it's still not something over which Google has any control, so it seems problematic to use that as an predictor of future evilness.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As in "Good Bye?"
since the post office says it was delivered, you're not going to get your money back from the post office. They'll just say that you're trying to defraud them. They consider insurance, another source of revenue, and boast about how low their payout rates are.
And media mail, 1st class, parcel post, and priority mail don't have built in delivery confirmation, it's an extra service ($.60 for buying it in store, or $.15 buying it online) Signature confirmation is an extra service also, and it costs something like $2 or $3. Signature confirmation is also required for anything over $250, or the seller automatically loses any dispute.
Reporting an item not recieved, to Paypal , is just the first step. There's a claims process you can go through, on ebay itself. (they refund purchase price -$25), you can also call up your credit card company, and dispute the transaction.
And from personal experience, I've won every dispute I've filed as a buyer, and lost every dispute filed against me as a seller, (including one where the buyer filed a complaint while the item was in transit, needless to say, he did not refuse delivery, and got the item and his money back)
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
The "evil-ness" of PayPal is mostly in terms of eBay and PayPal turning a blind eye to the fraud others have committed using their web site. On the one hand, they say that they're just "establishing a marketplace", and what goes on in that marketplace is up to the merchants and customers.
On the other hand, let's say I set up a flea market on my land. I need to lay down at least some basic rules, both to protect the customers and the merchants, and above all my own reputation. Even if the owner isn't doing any fraud himself, who wants to visit a flea market that's ridden with pickpockets?
The major factor that switched me over to online bill-pay from checks-and-stamps was learning that my bill-pay service would agree to go to bat for me in case of any issues. Just having someone agree in a contract to stand in my corner is a powerful incentive to trust.
Right now, you've got to jump through way too many hoops with eBay to convince them that a fraud has actually happened before they'll even consider opening up an investigation. If GBuy takes a more customer-oriented approach, I see two results:
1) Success for GBuy, as the demand for a safe online marketplace shifts their way
2) Fiscal pressure for eBay to actually deal with the issue, or lose their customer base. In its own way, I'd say this is probably better pressure than any lawsuit threats, or outcries from consumer protection experts.
If they're more concerned with covering their own butts than covering their customers, it'll be just the same old same old. If, on the other hand, they put time and energy into protecting their customers, they'll find themselves pretty well protected.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
There's no evidence that Google has what it takes to make this work. Paypal's edge is that they understand risk management better than anyone else, so they reject fewer legitimate transactions and reject fewer fraudulent transactions. Google is good at distributed processing and search, and I don't see how they can duplicate Paypal's expertise.
Out with Skype . . . In with Google Talk Out with Paypal . . . In with GBuy Out with Ebay . . . In with GBay Just so long as SlashGoogle doesn't come about.
I don't think so. http://www.bitpass.com/
If Google voluntarily makes themselves responsible in some way to an external regulator, or otherwise arranges their business such that users have legal recourse to resolve disputes, then you'll know they are less shady than Pay Pal. Pay Pal is an unregulated bank. As far as I can see, anyone who has significant business dealings with an unregulated bank is in serious need of psychiatric help.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Personally, I wish google would offer micropayments with extremely low or no transaction costs (say 0.1 cent), and simply say, "here's a big long random number. It's CASH. Don't come crying to us if you lose your digital walette in a dark alley. And Uncle Sam, don't expect us to be able to trace every cash transaction for your misguided domestic spying enterprises." I wouldn't use such a service myself for large transactions, where the ability to reverse a charge is worth the fee. But I'm still a true believer in micropayments. All it would take is one company big enough to make it universal and extremely low overhead. All the headaches of micropayments come from trying to avoid a single bottleneck for all transactions. I say screw that, let google be the bottleneck, they can handle it. It would create entirely new markets.
Gold, it's the obvious choice.
http://www.mises.org/money.asp
Money, like everything else is a commodity, you trade for it in exactly the same way you do everything else.
The only real reason that the government mandates that it holds a monopoly on money is so that it can print more itself to pay for stuff it hasn't taxed you on already. It prints more money, buys goods and services with it, the overall supply of money increases and the value of an individual dollar decreases, your bank balance loses worth just by sitting there.
Privately issued money is perfectly possible and in fact there are several countries where it was the norm until fairly recently. In Scotland for example, several of the banks are still able to issue their own bank notes, none of which are "legal tender", (including the bank of england notes btw), yet people accept them and the economy continues quite happily.
Of course this is actually illegal in the US.
Deleted
The article does discuss pricing and Google's strategy here. Pretty smart if you ask me...
"Google plans to charge merchants a 2.2% commission on a sale, plus 30 cents per transaction using its payment service...That is higher than Pay-Pal's lowest published rate of a 1.9% commission plus 30 cents per transaction.
"Google's rate doesn't include the discount pricing that the company will give to merchants participating in its AdWords advertising program...Merchants who spend money on Google's ad program could get the cost of payment processing through Google dropped to nothing...
"To attract consumers, Google plans to offer an unspecified rebate to people who complete online purchases using GBuy."
you can't use paypal to buy porn either. (it's part of their user agreement, there's an article online somewhere that claims, that this was a compromise with the govt. If paypal couldn't be used for 'morally offensive purposes' then the govt. wouldn't come down on paypal acting similar to a bank, but not following all the laws banks have to follow )
and last year, during the Xbox360 shortage, and people were postings 360 scams on ebay, left and right. Paypal was freezing first, asking questions later, for people selling 360s. Unfortunatly, the general public probably approves of this, judging by the number of people who paid $600 for an Xbox that never arrived, and were demanding more oversight from ebay.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
As "evil and incompetent" as google is. I think the web needed competence in this area. Paypal's monopoly wasn't good for the costumer.
If gbuy allows more countries to use (aka mine) I will be really glad. And if not it will at least force paypal to improve instead of not doing anything.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Google plans to charge merchants a 2.2% commission on a sale, plus 30 cents per transaction using its payment service, according to people briefed on Google's pricing. That is higher than Pay-Pal's lowest published rate of a 1.9% commission plus 30 cents per transaction.
I'm surprised to see that they're charging a higher rate than Paypal.
No Sigs!
Oh, as if Google had found a way to nullify the traditional power of Slashdot and word-of-mouth...
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
My mail was delivered, but by delivered I mean dumped on my doorstep without notification. There was somebody home, but nobody noticed the package until I got home several hours after delivery. So here we are, with several hundred dollars worth of electronics just sitting on the freakin' porch waiting to be stolen (though luckily I live in a good neighbourhood)
Sorry, but delivery means that I received the item. Dropping it on the porch doesn't count, and buyers should be wary of this. I believe the shipper in this instance was purolator, but unfortunately it's often up to the buyer what shipper is used. In this case, you should rip a strip out of the shipper, and go after them for damages. Ask them where *your* signature is ensuring that your package wasn't mis-delivered to Bob and Jane down the road, dropped on the porch for the neighbourhood hoodlums to pick up, or "delivered" by the mailman to decorate his own living room.
Besides what people have written about Google, the only place I can find anything where they specifically state their stance on "evil" is number 6 in their list of http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html">10 things that describe their philosophy. In it, they seem to narrow down on a specific kind of evil: pop-up ads and other annoyances in web advertising. Can someone point me to an interview or other direct source where "don't be evil" has broader implications?
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
I just wonder if they will be working on Perú because paypal doesn't :(
Because if you have used paypal, and for an extended period of time, you would have been ripped off by them at some point. As long as you don't do anything complex or have a chargeback or anything, you're fine. But as soon as you need something from their support department, out come the form-emails and sucky service.
-nosebreaker.com
Seeing as though Google won't accept firearm ads, I'd advise against using GBuy to do anything firearm-related.
Since shareholders care only for profits and increased share value, companies as entities must continue to do whatever it takes, including evil acts, in order to provide those increases. Eventually no matter how well intentioned a company starts off, the pressure to profit will force someone in the corporate structure to act to protect their job and will do something evil to survive within the company. Once others see that this tactic works, the obvious action is to copy the evil doer in order to also survive inside the company. Eventually the company becomes evil from the inside out, through what insiders see as a natural protection of the company as an entity and their jobs specifically.
Does this help me as a consumer? Why choose to use Google's payment service? I personally would avoid it given Google's proclivity to keep all my information forever, even if I 'delete' it. This definitely smacks of a Microsoft-esque "we have to expand at all costs" boondoggle.
Currently hooked on AMP
Devil's advocate: why is it so bad that Google tracks your purchases? Because they can tailor advertising results to products you might actually be interested in? Is that really so awful? If you're searching for or purchasing something illegal, then you're going to get caught anyway regardless of the engine you use, and if you're not, then the privacy issue is almost a non-starter (I say almost because there are always privacy issues at stake well within the confines of legal activity, however anything you type into Google is information that you are submitting willfully). I'm sorry, but since i have no interest in "MAEK UR D1CK L0NG C1Al1S HARD S3X!!!!11!" I think tailored advertising is a good thing.
Granted, it won't make the bad advertising go away, but eventually the market shifts towards things that work.
My friend who has been selling stuff through eBay says he has to pay 2.5%
Blar.
I sell online, and use Plimus (www.plimus.com) to take payments for my games. I have heard too many horror stories about paypal myself, and had trouble getting through to them when I needed help once. ;(
Ok so plimus is a complete software registration service, not just a payment provider, but there has been massive consolidation in this area, with RegNow buying up everyone except Plimus one by one. The last thing we need is for someone like Google to come swallow up the small companies in that area.
I give it maybe a year before you cannot use adwords or adsense if your website sells through a different payment provider. Regnow already do this, they wont give you the good commission rate unless you use them exclusively. I kinda thought that was anti-competitive and maybe not even legal, but apparently not
Anyway, I digress.
I like a free and open market with good competition. Google are welcome as a competitor, not a monopoly.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
What is this? Google is doing this, and google is doing that...
Something more interesting to read to be posted please!!!!
I'm actually getting afraid of Google. I'm trusting them for my mail account, which is already a lot, but also for my calendar, and one day I will obviously swap from flick to picasaweb for my pictures.
This raises the question: what happens if they go to a non-free model ? What if they go bankrupt ?
Is it just me or is google getting like kde with the g before everything. And shouldn't they call it Gmoney? And will it forever remain Gbuy beta? Is google search out of beta yet? And when are they going to come out with G-government? Just my rant against a Gworld.
Organizations should be judged on capability and not intention, for capability persists but intention could change in a blink of an eye. Google's "Do No Evil" mutto is but their current intent. Should a management change, it may no longer hold true.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Why is it that I can't pay my ebay selling fees with paypal? They dont trust their own system?
Krispy Kreme started to feature themselves everywhere opening up stores around every corner because of a popularity surge, and fell to the rockbottom of companies because of it
Radioshack opened up 18000 more locations than they should have, and tried to save themselves by opening to various markets that they couldn't master and are nearly bankrupt now
Microsoft began toppling empires and extending into foreign territory, and with one swift stock market crash they were told to back off.
Once companies go on the stock market, they will skyrocket and plumment or stay steady. We've seen google skyrocket, can anybody else guess what's next?
I Bleed Scarlet
Will I get a free $1000 to start off with the same rate of increase as GMail?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
1st result, 1st sentence: Our informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil."
Here's proof
Man, you really need that seminar!
The WSJ report claims that merchants who are heavy AdSense users will get substantial discounts on their GBuy mechant fees. If Google was considered a legal monopoly on search-engine advertising, this could very well be ruled to be illegal tying.
And so, eBay now has motivation to get US anti-trust action started on Google. What is interesting here is, the sellers who use eBay live in every congressional district -- if eBay chose to organize its sellers as a grass-roots lobbying machine, it could apply political pressure on Google that (say) Netscape could never hope to apply on Microsoft back in the day.
Typo in your Sig ./ for the articles
/. for the articles
I only read
Shouldn't it be
I only read
?
With a credit card, you have the ability to issue a charge back for failure to deliver goods. With Paypal, you have no such protection. This is the #1 reason I never use paypal. I want insurance that if I don't get something, I can go to my card company and get the charge reversed.
And a proper seller who takes credit card payments should have proof of delivery, documentation, etc. to protect themselves from fraudulent chargebacks.
Paypal is like handing your friend money to go downtown to pay some guy to deliver you some pizza, and the delivery guy never bothers to show up. Your friend did you a favor, but like hell is he going to work to help you get your food.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Google Announces GEvil
In a surprise move today, Google announced the launch of GEvil, the second portal devoted to all things mean, nasty, and underhanded, the first of course being the website of the Republican Party.
CEO Eric Schmidt said that "There's a lot of evil in the world already, but we feel that by bringing our first-class infrastructure and youthful energy to bear, we can take evil to new depths. Soon, there will be no escape from evil - we will make it available everywhere.
Asked how the move fits in with the company's motto, "Don't Be Evil", Schmidt replied, "See, that's the beauty of it right there. In truth, we've been evil all along, and our deceptive motto is itself a form of evil. Our researchers and engineers refer to this self-reflexive immorality as "meta-evil", and you'll see it spread through all our company products and services in the future, which by the way will be a bleak and terrible one."
So far Microsoft has not commented on whether they will claim that GEvil infringes on its patent for evil.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
It is widely known that Google payments, aka GBuy, is justa small piece of a puzzla that includes GBuy, Google Base, and Google Search to compete with eBay/Paypal. Think about it - right now, you do a search for "cheap Xbox 360, and get links to stores and also eBay. Now, you will get links to stores hosted on Google Base selling with GPay, advertising with AdSense - more revenue for Google.
1. google introduced "cost per action ad".
2. google introduced "online payment system"
I bet that google will measure "action" based on codes in their online payment system..
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
...is whether they will accept payments for ANYTHING or if they will restrict porn & firearms like Paypal. US currency clearly states "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private". If you start up a payment system and then restrict what it can be used for, it does NOT represent real US paper money. It is effectively a private currency system. I don't know about you, but I prefer to have my money backed by a government somewhere (no matter how shady), not some scumbag corporation and their bloodsucking stockholders.
Bye bye Paypal. Don't let the door hit you on the way out! We will surely miss your ever-so-loving customer service, your oh-so-honest system, your user-friendly dispute system, and everything that's you, Paypal and eBay.
We hope you well in the after-life, after you've been terminated.... or maybe not. Not all of us are destined to go to HELL like you, Mr. Paypal.
The day Paypal demanded complete access to my bank account for any additional purchases was the day I started sending money orders. My credit card is a way to protect my bank account. Paypal was a way to protect my credit card. What Paypal demanded shorts the layers of protection, why the hell should I trust a foreign, anonymous and unregulated firm with greater access to my funds than I do VISA or Mastercard? Google, bury them.
Does Google remind anyone else here of the brainspawn? Surely their spiderbots are the flying brains and their new datacenter will be their Infosphere. They will claim all, and then destroy all new creation!
n )
They will destroy us all! Ahh!
(For those who don't get the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainspawn#Brainspaw
I can promise you that you will find just as many restrictions with Google.
/. owes me money.
remember how google will sometimes take back the money from websites that google thinks had "fradulent" clicks on its page.. yet still charge the advertisers for those clicks... if anything.. that is pretty stinkin evil right there
If they had a web-based Word Processor, the could have called it Word Up GMoney. -merv.
I wouldn't worry about bankruptcy. The entire Google-culture seems a little too level-headed for it to go bankrupt any time soon. Bankruptcy is usually preceded by corporate extravagance at the managerial level; Larry and Sergey seem to be too "down-to-earth" and practical to promote an atmosphere where that would happen. Besides, it's about time some entity (powerful enough) attempted to compete on the level that PayPal on their level. Competition is good.
Store of value AND store of currency
Where's the currency?
Anyone who thinks PayPal is evil has never tryed to use one of the alternatives. (Western Union, Some sort of bank transfer)
Chances are any disscution on Slashdot will degrade into a flamewar about ID/Christianity within 14 posts.
As far as to the Chinese Hokkien is concerned, GBuy sounds like the term used to describe the female organ below. :P
Stealth Falcon
... or rumors that GBuy will work internationally? I know PayPal does, but with only a limited coverage.
Need a color? Try 100 random colors
Yes, advertisers bid on search words (or keywords in the case of GoogleAdsense on third party web pages). Yes, Google claims that the bids set the rates for what you get. However, as far as I know, the bid-mininum calculations are not audited. To be fair, I haven't looked; however, if the bids were audited, I would expect Google to make a bigger fuss about it. Other marketing channels do not make "bids" public either, so really, I can't fault Google too much.
Nevertheless, it's not nearly the same as say eBay, if I'm outbid on an item, I can see a list of users who bid on the item. On Google, when I'm playing advertiser, it's really a black box. This is especially true when minimum bids are involved -- for those not familiar, Google sets minimum bids for certain combinations of your ad text, your link target page content, and (I think) competing bids.
Anyway, Google Adwords is still a great deal for small advertisers. I've had far more success with it than with Yahoo, at least so far.
Google's got it down well with AdSense (sure, there're complaints and complainers, legitimate ones, too, but it works well for a lot of people and businesses, and they're working on improvements).
Once you've got the self-contained ecosystem (i.e. where the "currency" remains within the "GRealm"), it's doable. e.g. A publisher racks up dimes in her account by selling click-throughs to her popular blog articles. Those dimes are worth the full US$.10 so long as they're applied to her AdWords account, or Google Base purchases. When she requests a disbursement, Google takes its cut before sending the Cash Money Check.
If you can extend the GRealm (or YRealm, or MSRealm, etc.) to a large enough universe, it'd work very well for a lot of people (producers as well as consumers).
There've been *so* many Close But No Cigars on this front, and there are many interesting contenders now.
When someone with a compellingly-encompassing realm pulls it off, it adds another tier to the Free->Semi-Free->Subscription-Only models that exist today and "web 3.0" will be well on its way.
Steve
http://meanbusiness.com/
So lets see what information Google will have about us now... They have what we search for (our interests), our emails (our jobs/friends interests), our newsgroup posts, they can probably work out where we live roughly from google maps usage, and soon they will even know what stuff we're buying... Excuse me if I'm getting a little paranoid here!
you can't use paypal to buy porn either. (it's part of their user agreement, there's an article online somewhere that claims, that this was a compromise with the govt. If paypal couldn't be used for 'morally offensive purposes' then the govt. wouldn't come down on paypal acting similar to a bank, but not following all the laws banks have to follow )
Alternative theory: Serving porn companies would generate too much overhead when people try to repudiate their buys.
Which group of people is against porn and guns? I thought most anti-porn folks were pro-gun. Quakers excepted, of course.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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