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PayPal Accuses Google of Poaching Mobile Payment Trade Secrets, Personnel
jhernik writes with a selection from eWeek Europe's short story on a snag facing Google's new mobile payment system: "PayPal, eBay's payment service, has sued Google over its new Google Wallet service, accusing the search engine of poaching trade secrets for use in its mobile payment service. The suit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court just hours after Google unveiled its Wallet payments sheme, alleges that two key executives who created the near-field communication (NFC) service used company secrets about mobile payments to fashion its own service."
Seriously? This was big news on the major tech blogs tues or wed, got picked up by CNN on thursday and NOW it shows on slashdot?
"news for nerds, stuff that mattered last week"
Good thing they suck at execution these days (Wave, etc)
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
Google decided to censor the destination link. Use a different URL shortener.
It's just getting old and boring all this news about suing - as if it really was important and not only mesmerizing us poor readings and distorting the important issues and topics.
Indeed. The url was censored. Use something else to shorten it.
How many indie projects have they held ransom so far? It mystifies me why people even still use Paypal for -anything-. Skip the middleman and send a cheque, that's what the post office is for. Stop giving money to those criminal goons.
Prior Art... Cellphone-based mobile payment options have been available in Japan, India, even Kenya for years... some of these services have been available since before PayPal existed. And if that isn't enough of a prior art for a portable mobile payment system using an electronic network, I have an Interac card and a Visa I'd like to show them... the Interac network has existed since before the Internet (as it is today) existed, ditto Visa's electronic transaction network.
It is basic electronic security... beyond that, all you need is a unique user ID and a way to bill that user ID back to the customer. Giving somebody a unique account number isn't exactly a trade secret: banks have been doing that for as long as banks have existed. Putting a password/PIN on that isn't exactly a trade secret: that's been done in computer science for almost as long as computers have existed. How is any of what they're doing a trade secret?
That's a goatse.
The employees that left simply didn't want to give Paypal their bank account number....
F paypal.
Take note that they are not suing over NFC itself. After reading the blurb my first reaction was "they should of freaking patented it". This seems to be about business info instead.
Warning: goatse link...
the clusterfuck continues. US economic history in three words -- manufacturing, service, litigation.
weinersmith
Per Engadget, this is Paypal upset that their go-to guy who was negotiating with Google for a deal that would probably have been involved in the Wallet backend jumped ship to Google and helped launch Wallet instead. If the allegations are true, Osama Bedier was working both sides-- while pretending to work for Paypal to negotiate a business deal with Google, he was talking to Google about a potentially lucrative job.
(If Paypal are also suing over patents, they're insane-- NFC payments have been available for quite a while now. If there's anything they should learn from Oracle v. Google, it's that you don't want to dump a bunch of extra charges on the bench of an already overworked judge.)
PayPal took my money, that's FAR more serious than alleged trade secrets. No police investigation into that though.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
The title is bullshit. Ebay is not suing because Google is using their trade secrets. As far as I know, any trade secret you can reverse engineer legitimately is fair game. Ebay is suing because Google grabbed two of ebay's key personnel and ebay has information that these key personnel have revealed ebay's secrets to Google and Google is using this illicitly obtained information - despite both non-compete and non-disclosure clauses.
This way, the suit actually makes sense instead of being a WTF moment.
I know several good people who have been ripped off by PayPal's unethical practices.
Because of this I advise my other friends and family to not use PayPal and to seek
alternate solutions in ALL cases.
The sooner PayPal ceases to exist, the better.
And here is a question for PayPal users : why would you want to use a "service" such as PayPal when it is not accountable as banks are ?
PayPal is just an elaborate scam which enables dishonest users to screw honest people. And that is a service only a fool will use.
Goatse link, not that this is a surprise.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Beware: pretty much every tinyurl link in this story is goatse.
If Paypal had anything worth protecting they they should have patented it. No patent - no protection.
But it's a Secret, they whine in return. (def. secret: Something that you tell one person at a time.)
And what if someone else comes up with your "secret" independently? Can you sue them for (re)discovering your Trade Secret?
The only reason for Trade Secrets is, unlike patents, they never run out.
eBay essentially says that they own your mind even after you leave their overly restrictive, underpaid, job. That's right out of Total Recall and should be shot down by any court hearing this case before the gallery has even settled down into their seats.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...and everybody affiliated with them can suck a huge dick.
This sounds like what is already in place in Japan. They use their cell phone to buy stuff and well as pay to use the subway system (not the sandwich chain, but that is always possible). I hope this case gets dropped as anything they would need to know about how to set this up, can be learned for Japan and the system already set in place there. It has been proven by time and (From what I know) is Commonplace to use there.
Paypal are upset because Google touched the market first and said "Shotgun!".
When I opened this article, it said this is a scam site.
Am I the only one for whom firefox reported this story as a reported web forgery? Oh how Ironic.
This sounds like Mini stealing technology from Yugo to me.
Funny. The "Safe Browsing" Firefox addon (operated by Google), marks this page as 'dangerous' e.g. phishing / malware. A page talking about Google stealing IP from other PayPal, marked as phishing by Google - I really wonder how that could happen.
Is it a coincidence that when clicking on the comments link for this story i get a big red screen saying this page is a forgery and gives me the option to leave?
Doesn't it just come down to breach of contract on the part of the employees that Google poached?
This isn't about the technology. It's about Google hiring a PayPal marketing guy who had contacts with the retailers PayPal was going to sign up.
Which is appropriate, in a perverted sort of way, to his comment.
PayPal Accuses Google of Poaching Mobile Payment Trade Secrets, Personnel
So Paypal doesn't want Google lightly cooking their eggs...or personnel?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Companies sue Google because of "deep pockets" and jealousy. The game only works on the big (who could pay, like Google) and the small (who can't afford to take you to court, so settle). Look around. The original fight against net neutrality was ISP's who get paid by their subscribers, wanted extra revenue from Google, who already pays at their end for bandwidth -- trying to double dip - for no other reason than they thought Google had the bucks. They might have moved on to NetFlix now, but there's no real difference. And we'll all be watching what Comcast does, won't we.
ISPs all oversold their capability -- and now that people can and are trying to use what they thought they'd paid for (and the ISPs did set the prices) - they don't like it. Tough -- they deserve what they are getting, it's their own fault, and they should have to lie in the bed they made.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
"I thought of it first! Mommy! Make him stop!"
Pathetic and hypocritical.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
In certain parts of Africa, the cell phone is more ubiquitous than banks or credit card machines. So, a system setup by the locals, (not too many details), allows an individual to go to a filling station and fill his phone with some local currency (kind of currency). Everyone uses this currency. Take a taxi, and the driver will accept your payment via cellphone to cellphone. There are essentially no debit cards in circulation. I am not certain, but I read that there is no transaction fee. A fee is charted to buy this cellphone money, and that's it. The filling station is also charged with converting this money to liquid cash. But, from what I read, the cell phone money is really accepted everywhere, including shopping centers and groceries. We need this kind of service to eliminate the banks and their stupendous fees. What is wrong with being able to receive or pay for products and services with cell phone to cell phone transactions, aside from cheating the government out of taxes.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
You know, the bouncing around the screen trick is pretty pointless when you can just Ctrl+W the tab.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
People feel, if a company puts a contract in front of you, that you can't have your lawyers change things here and there. If a company is willing to make you an offer, that means they want you because of the knowledge you bring to the table, and in that case, you have the option to have your lawyer review the deal and change it. I have had Non-competes in front of me, and I haven't had to sign any of them.
OK, if I make linkedin contacts outside of work hours... what happens when I leave the job? Do I need to cancel my linkedin account?
There are alternatives, just not in the USA.
There's Yandex.Money and WebMoney in Russia (and xUSSR in general), which allow to do anonymous transactions. If I want to transfer money to somebody I just need to know their 'wallet ID'. I can even use payment terminals (like iBox: http://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/1848145/ibox-terminal.html which are everywhere ) and pay with cash completely anonymously. Fees are reasonable - around 1% for small transactions.
If I want to use something more official then there are bank transfers. They are intrinsically free for banks and so very cheap for users, my bank has all-you-can-eat plan for $10 a month or 0.1% from amount of a transaction. They are also processed instantaneously (well, it might take a minute or two depending on your bank).
US bank system looks like something out of the stone age.