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.'"
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.
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.
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.