Slashdot Mirror
Google Announces One Pass Payment System
eldavojohn writes "Riding the tail of Apple's 30% announcement, Google's Eric Schmidt has announced One Pass, a new method for users to pay for content. The BBC is reporting that Google is taking a 10% cut. One Pass will work on Google sites and on phones and tablets as the announcement notes: 'Readers who purchase from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smartphones and websites using a single sign-on with an email and password. Importantly, the service helps publishers authenticate existing subscribers so that readers don't have to re-subscribe in order to access their content on new devices.' This is to be handled through Google Checkout."
I think it's very misleading when they say it's "our content" which "we own".
You don't own the content unless it's in your possession.
In the virtual world I have a Beam Rifle and a Plasma Sword but it doesn't mean that I "own" one.
Wrong.
Both companies record what you are reading and your personal info, which is nothing new.
What is new is that Apple, as of iOS v4, is tracking your exact (GPS) location and is selling the data (after making it anonymous) to other companies. That was widely reported last July when it was announced.
On Android that is opt-in. Google is only tracking who decide they are OK with being tracked and Google has never sold user data.
Yes, yes, it's obvious that the old-fashioned way was just as egregious. That's not really the point.
Let me try and put it using a different allegory...
In olden-days, in order to subscribe to XYZ weekly, you had to present your backside to the publisher, who took a run-up, and then kicked your arse as hard as he could with his hob-nail boots. You'd go flying through the air to land in the cold, wet slush outside Ye Olde Publisher Shoppe. Dripping wet, soaked to the skin, you'd go home and nurse yourself through the resultant pneumonia whilst reading your periodical.
On Googleworld, this still applies, even for virtual periodicals. You still get the whopping big kick up the arse, and you can then read your periodical.
On Appleworld, you get to choose whether the publisher kicks you up the arse. Some people will choose 'Yes, please. Kick me up the arse', presumably for some suitable trade-off in kind. Most people will not.
Just because it was always thus is no justification for it to remain so. Apple are looking after the customer here; Google are selling the customer out to the publisher in the name of Mammon (as well as using the personal details themselves, of course).
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!