PayPal Accuses Google of Poaching Mobile Payment Trade Secrets, Personnel

no surprise... by cheeks5965 · 2011-05-28 04:37 · Score: 1

Google snatched ip away from somebody else and rolled it out as their own...

Good thing they suck at execution these days (Wave, etc)

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Re:Tuesday called, it wants its story back by somersault · 2011-05-28 04:50 · Score: 3, Informative

Why don't you submit it yourself then if you wanted it on /. immediately ? Slashdot is almost entirely user submissions. I don't care how long ago this was, I just like the snarky and often insightful or informative comments.

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which is totally what she said

Fuck Paypal. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 04:52 · Score: 1, Interesting

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.

Re:Fuck Paypal. by hackertourist · 2011-05-28 05:23 · Score: 1

You're forgetting that checks don't work so well for international transfers.
Re:Fuck Paypal. by Grishnakh · 2011-05-28 05:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

Checks are far, far too costly.
There's nothing stopping someone from sending you a bad check. What happens if you cash it? Your bank charges you a bounced-check fee, not them, YOU. (And yes, their bank changes them a fee too.)
Why do you think just about every retail place has stopped accepting checks now? They're inherently a bad system, and the cost of dealing with a bad check is too high.
When you're selling old shit on Ebay or Craigslist or whatever, a $30 bad-check charge will eat up your profits for several items, not just that one. It just isn't worth it.
On top of that, it's too slow. It takes several days for stuff to arrive in the mail, but you also don't know how prompt the buyer is in paying for his shit; some of them sit on it for days before paying. Then you have to wait 10 days for the check to clear before you can send their stuff. Meanwhile, they're bitching because it's taking 3 weeks for them to get their item. And what if something goes wrong? What if the buyer didn't pay at all? This is very, very common on Ebay for some reason: I'd guess that fully 5% of buyers never pay for their items. This number isn't pulled out of my ass, it's what happened to me when I sold all my old Transformers on Ebay a few months ago. With Paypal-only payments, you file an unpaid item dispute, and if payment doesn't show up on Paypal in 1 day, then you re-list and void the old transaction. With checks and the USPS, you have to wait a week or two.
Sending a check would be fine if the vast majority (like 99.99%) of buyers were honest, but they're not.
Re:Fuck Paypal. by nospam007 · 2011-05-28 07:15 · Score: 1, Insightful

Is that you, Grandpa?
Re:Fuck Paypal. by mcgrew · 2011-05-28 09:03 · Score: 1

Yeah, now get off his lawn you young whippersnapper!

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Re:Fuck Paypal. by DCFusor · 2011-05-28 11:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

I personally use checks for quite nearly 100% of my purchases, and I suppose I'm "lucky" to live in an area where 100% of retailers take them. Or, if you forget, an IOU, even on a napkin.

The dishonesty issues are better dealt with by mechanisms like, say, jail. All you people who make sure schools can't teach morality -- it's on you @@sholes. Not my fault you've moved society from "don't do wrong" to "don't get caught". Use the wire fraud system when someone writes you a bad one. It would only take a few more doing this to make even the more ignorant criminals wake up.

I like having the records of what I spend -- it's helped me stay rich once I got there by seeing where the money goes. Yeah, you can do that other ways, but the bank is a nice paper pusher and cheaper than one I'd hire.

Ever heard of a business account, you know, like you have to have if you're a legit business, rather than a freeloader avoiding taxes and regulations? They clear checks right now, and I mean right now -- and I get a phone call immediately if a deposited check doesn't fly. Maybe you're just too dumb to bank-shop and get a good one?

And yeah, I'm a luddite -- a weird thing for an ex dev and current physicist. I've had all the other payment options, and 100% of them have been hacked more than once, till I just gave up on them. But at the small town bank, if something goes wrong, I can just offer to take my business across the street. And, so far, 100% of the time -- if I even feel the need to say that -- it's enough and "nothing ever happened, please have a nice day and keep your business with us".

Like paper ballots, it's a lot harder to cheat this system, you're not being very smart to call for ditching it. So you got hosed. Karma -- or sloth. Takes one or the other.

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Re:Fuck Paypal. by Kalriath · 2011-05-28 15:15 · Score: 1

Sounds like a flaw in your banking system. Ours would never allow you to withdraw money from an account without being the authorised owner or a signatory to the account.

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Re:Fuck Paypal. by Grishnakh · 2011-05-28 17:29 · Score: 1

You're kidding, right? A business account for selling a few old things on Ebay once in a blue moon? WTF is wrong with you?
Re:Fuck Paypal. by Grishnakh · 2011-05-28 17:32 · Score: 1

Yep, it's a pretty big flaw. It's called ACH. Unfortunately, we Americans don't have the more advanced banks the Europeans have, which is precisely why we have Paypal in the first place. I've heard that in Europe, you can just transfer money directly from your account to someone else's. We can't do that here (well, we can, it's called a "wire transfer", takes several days (yes, days), and costs $35 (!)).
With a banking system like this, it should be little wonder why we just had a financial meltdown caused by none other than the banks. If the other nations were smarter, they'd be treating our banking institutions with the same respect that they treat the Bank of Zimbabwe.
Re:Fuck Paypal. by GooberToo · 2011-05-28 23:00 · Score: 1

Bzzzzz.
ACH's require authorization. That's exactly why there exists ACH authorization forms. Wow, that was tough.
An ACH transfer without authorization puts the banks liable.
Re:Fuck Paypal. by RockDoctor · 2011-05-29 03:24 · Score: 1

and I suppose I'm "lucky" to live in an area where 100% of retailers take them.

You're lucky, and I don't even know which continent or country you're in.
The last time I wrote a cheque was ... I'm not sure - some time in the early 1990s? I haven't seen a chequebook of mine since the last time I was clearing out the old box of bank statements from about then, and I think I took the chequebook back to the bank for them to destroy then. (I can't remember if they accepted them.)
As for a retailer that would accept a cheque - in this country most of the signs saying "we will not accept any cheques of any type after [DATE]" have grown yellow and faded, or fallen down. It must be 5 years since I saw someone write a cheque.

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Re:Fuck Paypal. by DCFusor · 2011-05-29 05:55 · Score: 1

A business account only takes a couple minutes a the bank to sign a couple papers -- if you also have a personal account, they know what to fill in for you. Mine is very low cost...and very nice for the features. Nothing is wrong with me, it's the easiest way to get things done sometimes. In case you didn't know, setting up as a "real business" has some very attractive tax benefits if your business and your toy habit have some overlap. The hassle really comes in if you have "employees" -- states really rape you for prepaid benefits. But if all you ever have is "contractors" -- other guys like you -- it's a great deal and most of your life becomes deductible. In fact, you might save more on taxes than the profits you make selling a few odd things on ebay. Once you have income....all costs associated with it become tax losses.

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Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Re:Fuck Paypal. by DCFusor · 2011-05-29 06:02 · Score: 1

Partly luck, and partly skill. I'm in Floyd County, Virginia. Proud home to all kinds of crazy people, about 20k of us, and one stoplight. The surrounding counties, like the one VA Tech is in, are much more dense, but they take my checks there too. I'm from DC -- an ex big city boy. I really prefer this to that by a country mile. The diamond to turd ratio in humans is vastly better here. Many people are entrepreneurs, as the commute to "anywhere that has jobs" is too long. The niceness is self-sustaining in a Darwinian way - if you're a jerk, everyone knows it, and no one helps you anymore, you may as well leave town. Because in the boonies, you'll be needing (and giving) help now and then. We do our own snowplowing before the state gets around to it, cut trees that fall in the roads ourselves for the firewood -- and off people's roofs when that happens, as it recently did to a few neighbors. I do physics research here in this time warp. It's kind of cool, really. As far as I can tell, civilization hasn't been moving forward in the denser regions of the planet, but going backwards, or as Asimov said "the galactic empire is crumbling". I'm sort of doing the First Foundation trip myself.

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Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Re:Fuck Paypal. by RockDoctor · 2011-05-29 12:42 · Score: 1

Sounds almost idyllic. Shame you posted the location to Slashdot - either the powers-that-be will descend upon you like vengeful Furies for daring to be happy, or Slashdot readers will descend upon you like ... well, you get the message.

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Re:Fuck Paypal. by Kalriath · 2011-05-29 13:17 · Score: 1

I'm in New Zealand, a tiny couple of islands just north of Antarctica, and we can transfer money like that (overnight, no cost - if to an account within the same bank, it's instant).

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For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Re:Fuck Paypal. by Grishnakh · 2011-05-29 16:44 · Score: 1

NZ and Australia are pretty much European countries, except that they're not physically in Europe. They're advanced, first-world industrialized nations, populated by ex-Europeans, and they speak a European language (though with a funny accent).
So it's no surprise they have more advanced banking that we in the backwards USA have.
Re:Fuck Paypal. by DCFusor · 2011-06-03 04:46 · Score: 1

Luckily, the last time the powers that be tried that, we repelled them, with some effort, "but you should have seen the other guy". As far as them reading this far down in an old story on slashdot....it might as well be one of the more private chat rooms at this point. And to the extent it attracts other cool geeks here -- that was the point.

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Why guess when you can know? Measure!

Dear Paypal... by realityimpaired · 2011-05-28 04:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

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?

Re:Dear Paypal... by jhoegl · 2011-05-28 05:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

There do seem to be an increasing number of companies jumping on the anti-google wagon.

I like Google because of their search engine, I use their gmail because it is efficient for personal things and their anti spam is very good.
I use the front page to pull feeds from other sites and get a quick glance at things.
I use Android based phones because I like their business model.
But if Google ever does me wrong, I will find alternatives.
Businesses really dont have to try this hard to smear Google, eventually they will buckle under their own weight or because some idiot will get into a position they shouldnt be in and make a decision that harms the consumer. I know this is an inevitability, so do most smart consumers. Let it go companies, right now you just look petty.
Re:Dear Paypal... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 05:36 · Score: 1

Prior art doesn't apply in this case. Please understand what you're talking about before spewing that nonsense. Paypal's complaint is that Google hired one of their existing employees who had prior knowledge of upcoming paypal business strategies, contracts, and people they would approach for the service. The former paypal employee then used Paypal's trade secrets and internal business policies and code to set up a competing service and then to contact the companies and offer the Google Wallet service instead, beating Paypal to the service by using illegally obtained insider information.
Prior art applies in patent cases, not theft of trade secrets cases.
Note: IANAL.
Re:Dear Paypal... by scragz · 2011-05-28 05:48 · Score: 2

Prior art only applies to patents, not trade secrets. They are pretty exactly opposite sides of the IP landscape. There could be some algorithms behind the scenes or in any other number of secret locations that would still be secret.
Re:Dear Paypal... by sydneyfong · 2011-05-28 06:06 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm not saying Google is doing anything wrong, but let's *assume* that Google is doing shady things (like "stealing trade secrets" as alleged by Paypal) to harm their competitors, shouldn't those competitors be allowed to bitch and moan too?
It doesn't always have to be you (or the customer) who's harmed before they can be rightfully accused of any wrongdoing.

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Re:Dear Paypal... by grapeape · 2011-05-28 07:23 · Score: 1

Agreed...Paypal can DIAF. I had heard horror stories but ignored them and continued to use them for years, mainly to pay for stuff but once in a while to sell on ebay. About a month ago I had been cleaning my basement and ran across some collectibles that I had no use for but were worth a decent amount so I listed them....have no negative feedback at all, have never had a payment dispute and have been a member for 9 years, a few days before 3k worth of auctions are about to close I get a notice from paypal that my account was deemed "high risk" so there would be a 21 day hold on any transactions which apparently includes even shipping fees. Several of the buyers were overseas so I was stuck with several hundred dollars in shipping while having to wait 3 weeks to actually get access to the payments, I called paypal about it and was told the easiest way around it was to buy confirmed shipping labels from paypal themselves...which would get the release changed from 21 days to 3. Apparently paypal is now creating a "protection racket" for ebay.
Re:Dear Paypal... by Jafafa+Hots · 2011-05-28 07:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

How did we get to the point where using ideas - ANY ideas (apart from "how to kill" ideas), is ever considered wrongdoing?
We've managed to make illegal the very process that allowed human culture to develop in the first place.

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Re:Dear Paypal... by mcgrew · 2011-05-28 09:08 · Score: 1

AFAIC they can get as evil as they want to other companies. When they get evil to users like some other companies *coughsonycough* then I'm done with them. I could give a rat's ass what one big government-owning corporation does to another.

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Re:Dear Paypal... by Ixokai · 2011-05-28 09:17 · Score: 1

... uhh, Paypal isn't suing them for patent infringement. "Prior art" has nothing to do with it.
They're suing them for stealing trade secrets -- trade secrets can be anything confidential that a business uses in, well, doing business. We have no idea what actual trade secrets they are alleging Google stole: that's almost certainly going to be sealed... A trade secret is just information that's important to a business that they attempt to keep secret. It could be a list of businesses who were ready to partner with Paypal but hadn't announced it for various reasons. Or countless other things.
There's legal and illegal ways of discovering someone's trade secrets.
Negotiating with a company to go into some sort of partnership is a way to get access to their trade secrets...as is reverse engineering what the secret sauce is... but, hiring away the very people you're negotiating with to do your own version of the project, er, smells more then a little bit funny.
IANAL, though.
Re:Dear Paypal... by Ixokai · 2011-05-28 09:27 · Score: 1

Its not about using "ideas". Its about stealing specific, actual information that another company kept secret that is of material value to their business.
Trade secrets are not some new or novel thing; let's say I come up with a recipe for this great and awesome sauce that makes everything taste wonderful. Obviously, I want to keep that secret. So I make my employees sign a NDA on the recipe, and I go out of my way to not reveal exactly what is in it and the process of mixing that I go through.
If you analyze it and come up with the exact recipe on your own, you're entirely fine. I didn't patent the recipe (patenting would mean I only get its exclusivity for 10 years, after which its public) -- I just made an effort to keep it secret.
But if you pay one of my employees to write the recipe down and pass it on, THAT I can sue you for. That's entirely fair, even. If you engage in corporate espionage and illegally gain access to secrets I use to do business, then the fact that you did so illegally gives me the grounds to sue you for damages, because /you/ having my secrets causes financial harm to me.
Is that really all that unreasonable of a thing to allow?
Re:Dear Paypal... by erroneus · 2011-05-28 10:50 · Score: 2

They should be allowed to bitch and moan. But they shouldn't be allowed to sue. In the job market today, employees are all far too undervalued with the exception of the C-level which are typically over-valued. (Yeah, I know, I'm giving away my blue-collar nature.) Fact is, if Paypal valued their employees well enough, they couldn't be coaxed into jumping ship for another company. They leave for one reason only -- "better job." And "better job" doesn't always mean more money. It could mean free baskets of fruit and juice in the snack room. (Man, I would totally go for a company that supplied me with fresh fruits and vegetables in the break room. Junk food is ALWAYS more convenient than good food... damned shame)
Companies everywhere need to value, involve, include and engage their employees. Treating them as "human resources" is where the problem begins.
Re:Dear Paypal... by gottabeme · 2011-05-28 11:46 · Score: 1

Yes. You have hit the nail on the head. Makes me want to build a time machine and go back to the stone age and "invent" a wheel. Oh, wait...doing that would "infringe" on someone's imaginary "property" probably.
The way things are going, the rate of progress is going to slow down instead of continuing to increase. The future is going to laugh at us in bewilderment--the past already is.

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"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Re:Dear Paypal... by Dragonslicer · 2011-05-28 11:46 · Score: 1

Prior art only applies to patents, not trade secrets. They are pretty exactly opposite sides of the IP landscape. There could be some algorithms behind the scenes or in any other number of secret locations that would still be secret.
That's true, the specific phrase "prior art" is normally only used when dealing with patents, but you also can't claim something as a trade secret if it's already publicly known. I'm curious about what Paypal is claiming as secret, since I'm sure Google has plenty of people capable of developing this kind of system without stealing any secrets from Paypal (whom I didn't even know had a mobile payment system).
Re:Dear Paypal... by Jafafa+Hots · 2011-05-28 11:48 · Score: 1

"Is that really all that unreasonable of a thing to allow?"
yes.

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Re:Dear Paypal... by gottabeme · 2011-05-28 11:55 · Score: 1

I think that is unreasonable. Trying to keep something a secret is risky by definition. It makes perfect sense for a competing company to try to compete by duplicating their competitor's product. While it may be unethical, that doesn't mean it should be illegal. I think their recourse should be only to sue the employee with whom they had a contractual agreement. If they had no such agreement with a competing company, I say "tough cheese.". That's business. Try harder to keep your secrets or diversify so you don't go bankrupt if one of your secrets is found out. If you don't do that, that's just poor planning on your part, and you deserve to fail. Then your shareholders can sue YOU! Haha.
I'm sick of the legal system being used to coerce people and organizations and corporations by a bunch of whiners who want to rest on their laurels and let the government protect their marketshare. It's pathetic and disgusting. Real business tycoons of history would laugh at them and would beat them into the ground by doing real business. They need to grow up. They are becoming parasites on society.

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"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Re:Dear Paypal... by Ixokai · 2011-05-28 12:15 · Score: 1

"Real" business, where its okay to bribe someone into breaking a NDA. "Real" business where its okay to go tap someones phone. "Real" business where you can break someones knees if they're getting in on your turf.
Your idea of "real business" has to be run by sociopaths -- worse then the current ones already are.
There's nothing wrong with duplicating a competitors product: that's good business. That's NOT theft of trade secrets: theft of trade secrets is inducing someone into breaking their agreement to keep the secret (which does make you liable), or using other illegal means to gain the information.
That some people can't quite see the difference... Yeah, there's parasites in society around all right, but I think there needs to be some mirror looking going on.
Re:Dear Paypal... by Kalriath · 2011-05-28 15:20 · Score: 1

You do realise PayPal is owned by eBay right? So eBay is actually creating it's own protection racket via a subsidiary.

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Re:Dear Paypal... by gottabeme · 2011-05-28 16:55 · Score: 1

I didn't condone any of those things. However, while bribes are immoral, in the private sector they ought to be legal.
Keeping secrets is risky business, and there should be no legal protection for doing so. Patents and copyrights are bad enough.
Ideas don't belong to anyone, they belong to everyone.

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"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Re:Dear Paypal... by Vegeta99 · 2011-05-28 17:13 · Score: 1

Agreed. I don't understand the grandparent's argument that I'm morally any worse because I got one of my competitors employees to squeal.
If the cops do it to a suspect, and the information is about a murder, its cool, but if I do it in my business it's not? Why should I be worried about the other guy's consequences? The cops don't worry about the squealer getting shot a block away from the police station after he squeals, do they?
Re:Dear Paypal... by tlhIngan · 2011-05-28 17:30 · Score: 1

You had the option of going with a standard merchant account as well. You just have to offer Paypal with eBay.
Oh wait, most merchant accounts screw with you worse than Paypal - demanding minimum transaction amounts (you must do $1K+ per month, or more), arbitrary holds (21 days? Hah. Some can hold for 90+ days), and all sorts of other crap.
Trust me, if you want to accept random amounts of money from people, your only option is Paypal. Unless you're a business, you can't accept credit cards at all otherwise.
And for all the bitching you hear about Paypal, most fairly deserved, it never seems to occur to people that they can use Amazon Payments or Google Checkout as well. Oh wait, they're also merchant accounts and you're screwed unless you're a business. Or just accepting money orders, but those aren't convenient to the buyer at all, having to get one, and send it via snail mail.
You'd think Paypal would have competition in the area of letting two random people exchange money.
Re:Dear Paypal... by StripedCow · 2011-05-28 23:10 · Score: 1

The fact that a successful company has a slogan "do no evil" makes me think that something is seriously wrong with consumer protection.

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Re:Dear Paypal... by mjwalshe · 2011-05-29 02:59 · Score: 1

you might want to look up the laws as they apply to employment its how it works

Re:Cry baby cry... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 04:55 · Score: 1

That's a goatse.

Blurb confusing. by Jartan · 2011-05-28 04:58 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

And so by martas · 2011-05-28 05:09 · Score: 1

the clusterfuck continues. US economic history in three words -- manufacturing, service, litigation.

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weinersmith

It's probably not about patents by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 05:14 · Score: 2, Informative

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.)

Title is bullshit by fnj · 2011-05-28 05:16 · Score: 1

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.

Re:Title is bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 06:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

Non-competes are illegal in CA, so that can't be the basis of their suit (or at least not a good one).
Re:Title is bullshit by nospam007 · 2011-05-28 07:20 · Score: 1

"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."
Since Google doesn't have read that NDA nor signed it themselves nor can they identify what knowledge an employee has is illicit or not, how can this be Google's fault?
Anyway, if the NDA has a fine defined for a violation, they'll just pay it.
Re:Title is bullshit by fnj · 2011-05-28 09:49 · Score: 1

The issue is not what Google knows or does not know. The issue is that Ebay can identify what they know to be their plans implemented at Google, immediately after two of Ebay's personnel move to Google.
Non disclosures and the like (in the US as I know them at least) do not codify what will happen to you if you break them. They simply restrict what you may do. If you break one after signing it, you are violating contract law, plain and simple. The remedy is bringing suit in civil court.
Google has the pockets. Much bigger than the pockets of the two new Google personnel. You always sue the pockets. They will simply allege Google is in on a conspiracy.
Re:Title is bullshit by Kalriath · 2011-05-28 15:24 · Score: 1

Since Google doesn't have read that NDA nor signed it themselves nor can they identify what knowledge an employee has is illicit or not, how can this be Google's fault?
Inducing someone to commit a crime is in itself a crime (and the same for civil violations). This will likely be the basis of their argument.

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Re:PayPall == we are doomed? by dgatwood · 2011-05-28 05:20 · Score: 1

Goatse link, not that this is a surprise.

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Re:Tuesday called, it wants its story back by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 06:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

People stop bothering to submit stuff when editors consistently ignore good submissions in favour of some boring/irrelevant/incorrect piece of shit or consistently turn informative summaries into some biased, uninformative, condescending bits of dribble.

shotgun! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 06:19 · Score: 1

Paypal are upset because Google touched the market first and said "Shotgun!".

Firefox playing up. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-28 06:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

When I opened this article, it said this is a scam site.

Re:Firefox playing up. by wmbetts · 2011-05-28 06:53 · Score: 2

I reported it as not a scam site. I think it's because of the word paypal in the url bar.

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Re:Firefox playing up. by Zerth · 2011-05-28 07:15 · Score: 2

Chrome is doing it too(they use the same db)
Re:Firefox playing up. by OpenLegs · 2011-05-28 08:55 · Score: 1

Ditto. Seems to be just the RSS feed. Kind of ironic if you think about it.

Re:Web Forgery by 98+Rezz · 2011-05-28 07:09 · Score: 1

I got it too. Told google to shove it, trying to block content they don't like.

So Wallet is going to suck horrendously too? by Outtascope · 2011-05-28 07:09 · Score: 1

This sounds like Mini stealing technology from Yugo to me.

Re:Google says this page is dangerous by ammorais · 2011-05-28 07:24 · Score: 1

Same here!

Re:Web Forgery by Sene · 2011-05-28 08:09 · Score: 1

Same here :) What a coincidence.

Why aren't they suing the employees? by yincrash · 2011-05-28 08:18 · Score: 1

Doesn't it just come down to breach of contract on the part of the employees that Google poached?

It's about the customer list. by Animats · 2011-05-28 08:18 · Score: 1

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.

Re:It's about the customer list. by Compaqt · 2011-05-28 15:46 · Score: 1

That would actually seem to make some sense.
Contact information belongs to the employer. It's entered on company computers on company time.
Even copying it into your own paper notebook means you were using company time to do so, which is uncool regardless of the legality.

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I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog

Too many cooks. by Ostracus · 2011-05-28 10:22 · Score: 1

PayPal Accuses Google of Poaching Mobile Payment Trade Secrets, Personnel

So Paypal doesn't want Google lightly cooking their eggs...or personnel?

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Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"

Re:Dear Paypal...Missing the point on Goog by DCFusor · 2011-05-28 11:21 · Score: 1

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.

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Why guess when you can know? Measure!

Call the waambulance. by gottabeme · 2011-05-28 11:41 · Score: 1

"I thought of it first! Mommy! Make him stop!"

Pathetic and hypocritical.

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"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."

Re:Tuesday called, it wants its story back by Kalriath · 2011-05-28 15:08 · Score: 2

Or they reject dozens of submissions linking to an authoritative source in favour of some bullshit regurgitation from some blog with thousands of ad spots on it.

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For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".

Wallet concept not new by lsatenstein · 2011-05-28 15:11 · Score: 1

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.

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Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada

Re:Cry baby cry... by Kalriath · 2011-05-28 15:12 · Score: 1

You know, the bouncing around the screen trick is pretty pointless when you can just Ctrl+W the tab.

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For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".

Re:No Patent by Kalriath · 2011-05-28 15:27 · Score: 1

Actually, the whole point of trade secrets is that they don't run out, and they don't require publishing. However, unlike patents the catch is that if someone else independently creates it, they do not infringe upon it and you have no basis to file suit. Trade secrets are protected in the same way as patents, other than that one specific case.

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For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".

There are alternatives, just not in the USA by Cyberax · 2011-05-29 02:59 · Score: 1

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.

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PayPal Accuses Google of Poaching Mobile Payment Trade Secrets, Personnel

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