Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

PayPal Introduces Open API

Posted by timothy on from the freedom-to-pay dept.

m2pc writes "PayPal has just announced the availability of their Open API under the 'PayPal X Program.' This enables developers to integrate PayPal payment processing services without forcing users to redirect to PayPal's website to enter payment information. This new initiative is designed to allow the company to better compete with the likes of Google and Amazon, which offer similar services. I wonder how much they paid for their domain: x.com?"

4 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Paypal was originally x.com by SashaMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Paypal has owned the x.com domain since before they were paypal (check wikipedia), so while x.com probably wasn't super cheap back in 1999, it's not like they just purchased it.

  2. Re:one-letter domain? by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

    PayPal has always owned it:

    The current incarnation of PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com. X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal

  3. Re:Bummer! by nametaken · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're kidding, right? Did you just call PayPal a reputable company? You clearly haven't had an account seized for no particular reason... or the various other nefarious shit they're known for.

  4. Re:As a Developer by nacturation · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why on earth would I want to add the burden of handling and protecting sensitive financial information when I can just send the user to a website they are familiar with to complete the transaction? No credit card numbers in my DB to steal, added trust for the user - this API seems like fail-fail.

    If you're storing credit card numbers, you're doing it wrong. Here's how it should happen:

    • Your payment page is SSL secured and people enter their CC details
    • Your web server sends it through an SSL-secured API to PayPal
    • PayPal responds with the result
    • Your web server does or doesn't approve the order as appropriate (this is the ??? step)
    • Profit!

    The only storage of sensitive information that goes on is inside the server's RAM and it gets discarded from RAM once the transaction concludes.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.