Slashdot Mirror
PayPal Offers $150,000 In Developer Challenge
blackbearnh writes "As previously reported on Slashdot, PayPal recently released a series of new APIs that allow developers to embed PayPal into their web sites and applications without requiring the user to go to the PayPal web site to complete the transaction. To encourage developers to use these new APIs, PayPal is offering two prizes totaling $150,000 for interesting new applications. The entry deadline to register ideas is December 16th, and O'Reilly has an interview with the director of the PayPal Developer Network that covers the details of the contest. In it, Naveed Anwar talks about why PayPal is throwing money at developers. 'When Facebook opened up their platform, it allowed people to work in that particular environment, in the Facebook environment. When the iPhone opened up their platform, they allowed people to work in their environment which was build the applications on the iPhone. When PayPal was looking at opening up its platform, we are not limited by one particular area. We go into the enterprises. We go into social networking. We go into all the places where payment as a solution is needed. And if we can actually reduce that barrier of entry — because at the end of the day, when anyone is building out a business and anyone is building out an application, they're looking at ways of monetizing it.'"
What? Grammar aside, if that's true, it's rather more newsworthy than this somewhat confused story,
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Entering my PayPal login details on some random webpage, without even the convenience of being able to verify the https://www.paypal.com/ in the address bar?
Phishing begins in 3... 2... 1...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I wouldn't consider it a ploy at all. Essentially this is what Developers and Producers have wanted from PayPal for a LONG time. There are ways to store your paypal account info in other services (Steam comes to mind) but you always had to go to the paypal site to complete the transaction.
Paypal has never been anything but a processing center. All it ever did was hold your bank accounts and Credit cards online so that you don't have to enter that number in more than one place on the internet. All it ever did was keep the #'s secure, in a sort of "I'll give paypal my money if paypal pays for the product" - thus you only ever have to trust 1 person online. If you ever thought it was anything different, you were sadly mistaken.
Anyways, this is good, it's kind of a "Here's what you asked for" and a little kicker to make sure the rest of the world knows, to help it take off quicker.
Paypal has never been anything but a processing center. All it ever did was hold your bank accounts and Credit cards online so that you don't have to enter that number in more than one place on the internet. All it ever did was keep the #'s secure, in a sort of "I'll give paypal my money if paypal pays for the product" - thus you only ever have to trust 1 person online. If you ever thought it was anything different, you were sadly mistaken.
This new API completely removes that benefit. this makes it so that any paypal merchant can randomly charge whatever they want to my account. Previously I would have had to explicitly approve the transaction.
by sticking your cell phone into the strippers ass. Thats pretty much the only useful thing I can think of.
Monstar L
Right - and you will STILL have that option.
They are simply making it more convenient for those who do not want to have to explicitly approve each and every transaction. Specifically subscription based items, Like World of Warcraft, Lottery Tickets, online Poker, etc etc.
I can just see it now.... You will even be able to "twitter" your money away. Well they "twitter" about everything else in life, why not how much you spend or how much you make? Sounds like a really dumb idea, so I wonder how long before someone actually implements it?
Nah, the real problem is that, even if you "win the Challenge" you will win a Paypal account with $150,000usd
No sig for the moment.
I'm waiting for "All it ever did was keep the #'s secure" and "you only ever have to trust 1 person online" to seem like a BAD thing. I mean, there has to be a problem with that for them to be throwing that way. Maybe you can explain it to me.
Call it a feature that lowers bandwidth costs by reducing overhead incurred by page redirects
Give it away for free for 6 months, then charge a 0.5% convenience fee on all transactions.
For fun, in 1 year, start charging a 0.5% legacy implementation fee on all old-style transactions.
There you go. Where's my $150k?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
After hearing so many stories about PayPal requiring people to sign away rights like credit card chargebacks,
You can still do a charge-back to Paypal if you paid with a CC. Of course, PP will probably cancel your account if you do that, but that's why you shouldn't trust your PP account too much, and just use it for buying shit on Ebay. If you need to rely on it more than that, then open multiple Paypal accounts; use one for selling, one for buying, etc. That way, if PP closes one, you'll still have the other one.
and their allegedly arbitrary process of deciding without warning and without due process that you're committing "fradulent" activities, which of course entitles them to take the money from your account or freeze it
Yes, this is why you should NEVER link Paypal to your main bank account. That's just stupid. Instead, have a separate bank account (at a different bank or credit union even), and link your PP account to that. Never keep any substantial amount of money there; just use it as a place to move money to/from your Paypal account. For instance, if you sell a lot of stuff, have a single PP account just for selling, and link that to an empty bank account. Periodically (every few hundred $$$ or so), transfer money from your PP account to the bank account, then withdraw it (in person or by check, whatever's easier) and move it to your main account that way. Don't give PP a path to your main store of funds, that's just asking for trouble.
PAYPAL IS FOR ***.
I won't comment on that, but anyone that trusts PP too much is asking for trouble IMO. However, it is pretty much a "necessary evil" for a lot of online transactions. I have my own little web store I sell some widgets on, and PP is the only realistic way to get money from people all over the world without asking them to send me money orders, which would result in very few sales, or having to pay thousands of $$$ to set up a credit card merchant account (these fees are probably more money than I've made selling my little widgets). It's entirely possible to use PP and set yourself up so that you're protected in case they try to screw you over.
PayPal operates like, and should be regulated like, a bank. The way they have treated their customers, like me, and many, many, many others, should be a warning to all; You can't afford to do business with PayPal. They will seize your money, and when they do, it will be months before you see a resolution. The horror stories are true: I know, I have mine.
Mod parent up. PayPal needs to become a regulated bank. Until then, take your business elsewhere, to sites that accept credit cards. If someone can't qualify for a merchant account, you probably don't want to deal with them anyway.
Infrastructure costs money. Today you can go anywhere - to a store or on the internet - and purchase something with a credit card and the tranaction will be approved in a matter of seconds. It took many years and LOTS of money to create that infrastructure.
And that's the problem with transactions involving a payment of only a few cents (or fraction of cents). The fee you have to charge in order to pay for all that infrastructure is considerably more than the cost of the transaction itself. The "price floor" is not imaginary or arbitrary, it is real and it is dictated by the cost of the infrastructure needed to handle transactions.
Like Ebay? Since they only accept PayPal now, and no other form of payment.
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
>> PayPal needs to become a regulated bank. Until then, take your business elsewhere, to sites that accept credit cards. If someone can't qualify for a merchant account, you probably don't want to deal with them anyway.
You are confusing things. PayPal is fine for the buyer, and is usually better that creating another account to buy one time something.
For the seller, they are terrible^4. This is why Google Checkout is taking over.
I buy things from Google Products all the time. As a buyer, there is a lot of value in that simple checkout process.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
i agree that paypal needs to be regulated, but most problems are people not following the instructions. like when you accept payment make sure it's only from verified people and send only to confirmed addresses. and use a tracking #, insurance and signature confirmation for expensive items. the #1 rule is only send to confirmed addresses. i haven't sold on ebay for a long time but my rule was anything over $15 or $25 had to go to a confirmed address. my auction stated that all paypal payments had to be sent to confirmed addresses.
"Paypal has never been anything but a processing center. "
Actually it's a bank located in Luxembourg since a couple of years.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070614_606853.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
I don't know about the US, but in Europe PayPal's User Agreement says that it is "licensed as a Luxembourg credit institution". Also I don't really get where all the hate for PayPal comes from.
Yes I read a dozen times that they froze the account of SomethingAwful or some loud-mouthed bloggers under dubious circumstances, but for me it always worked just fine. Actually I really like PayPal because it allows me to send a seller money that is instantly credited to his account, without trust issues on either side or credit card processing for the seller.
I also like the security of going to PayPal's site so I can verify the payment, which is why I am quite sceptical of this API change. But apart from that I really don't see how PayPal is bad in any way for me as an ordinary customer.
Google's Checkout is a failure, much like most every other Google product other than search. Now that Google Checkout is the same price (or in some cases, more expensive) than PayPal, yet less feature rich, I assume it will just disappear in time like every other PayPal challenger.
I agree: while they should perhaps have some limited regulation, I've been using them for nearly as long as they've been around without any problem, for both personal and business. A really big plus is that I don't have to have the responsibility of dealing with credit card security. I would *never* enter paypal credentials into a random web site, but haven't looked at the new api yet to see if that's really what they're doing. It would be really stupid for them to do that. I'd venture to guess that fraud handling is already their biggest expense, and that would just make it worse.
People keep crying "Oh noes! PayPal seezees my monies!" Why the hell do you leave money in there?
Once a week, transfer everything out of PayPal to your real bank; you know, the one regulated by the FDIC, has potential to earn interest, and you use to pay all your bills.
So, you take a fee-hit every time you do so. Either suck it up, buttercup and consider it a business expense --OR-- figure out how much you would spend on a real Merchant Account so you can accept credit cards, plus the time, energy, and resources for building a custom, secure commerce system, and so on.
For my website, PayPal works just fine. And for that 1 in 5000 customer, I maintain a PO Box for sending me Money Orders
I've had a recurring subscription for years using Paypal. I've never had to explicitly approve each and every transaction. I approved it once, and it keeps charging me.
At my store, about 1 in 100 use Paypal if given the choice. You're losing out on a lot of business if you don't accept credit cards. Try authorize.net or if you want to stick to Paypal, Payflow. Paypal is fine for a hobby business, but if you're trying to make a living, you need to take plastic.
I got a warning from PayPal saying that I am getting close to my 'send limit'. I've been using it for probably 6 - 8 years now, and now they're telling me I have to 'confirm' my identity in order to continue using their service. Confirmation requires me 1. giving them my bank account number or 2. getting a PayPal credit card.
Why the fuck would I want to do that? And if it really is for security purposes, why can't I just fax my driver's license?
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
It's probably paypal's last attempt at getting someone to care. They're probably just now realizing that the winner of this thing is going to be some incredibly boring shopping cart script written in PHP because it's going to be the only entry.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I agree with all the facts you set forth, but the way you present them sounds too much like blaming the victim.
Quis metamoderunt ipses metamoderatores?
I'm not blaming the victim at all, but you do have to realize that when Paypal gets entangled with your main bank account, that's a BIG vulnerability, and there's been lots of horror stories involving Paypal stealing money from someone's account over a dispute or whatever. A prudent person recognizes risks, and takes steps to avoid them; I just suggested some steps to avoid excessive risk when dealing with Paypal. They can't suck money out of an account if there's no money there.
Paypal in the EU is a regulated bank, registered as such in Luxembourg: Daily Telegraph article
"Paypal has never been anything but a processing center. "
Actually it's a bank located in Luxembourg since a couple of years.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070614_606853.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
Wrong! Paypal is only a bank for European customers. Here's an exact quote from the article you linked to "PayPal is not regulated as a bank in the U.S."
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."