RSSGoogle Launches Payment Service
By Ed Oswald | Published June 29, 2006, 12:22 PM
Google on Thursday launched its highly-anticipated payments service, dubbing it Google Checkout. While at first glance, the Mountain View, Calif. company's new offering may look to compete with PayPal directly, it differs from the popular payment services in a few key ways.
Instead of acting as a depository for funds, Google Checkout aims to speed the checkout process by acting as a method to send personal and financial information to participating merchants. The customer does not need to enter any information in order to make purchases.
The service is available only to businesses that advertise through Google's network. To inform users of which advertisers are supporting the program, a green shopping cart icon would appear by the advertisement in Google's pages.
Google Checkout would be offered to advertisers for free. Initially, participating merchants include Jockey, Starbucks Store, Levi's, Dockers, Buy.com, Timberland, Zales among others.
"For shoppers, the goal of Google Checkout is to include more relevant information in search advertisements and make it easier to buy from sellers with a single login," product manager Eric Lange said. "For advertisers, we want to make it easier to attract new customers and process their purchases for free."
It is unclear what eBay's position on Google's latest move is as the company has refused to comment. eBay is one of the search engine's largest advertisers.
Analysts gave the service high marks initially. "It's brilliant - by tying the wallet service to search, Google creates a huge incentive for its retail advertisers to participate," Charlene Li of Forrester Research said. However, she was concerned that Google's moves in the information arena could be seen as similar to that of Microsoft.
"Instead of dominating operating systems and software, Google is instead dominating our information," Li said. "So at what point does Google step over the line and extend its products and services too far?"
"This is no scam , obviously"
Obviously.
...
Score: 0
|*nevermind*
They removed it.
Score: 0
|Well im not sure if you can actually have a balance in an account like you can with paypal. If its just a Credit Card service then it will not stand up to Paypal. Many people have sell and use the funds in there account to pay for auctions. I think paypal has been around so long its going to be hard to beat them. Stormpay tried to do this, and died.
Score: 0
|Google is also stealing people from Microsoft.
mabey after Bill Gates retires he will go work for Google also...
Googlesoft ???
Score: 0
|This is news and yes, google is spreading very fast, maybe too fast.I agree with Charlene Li. Maybe they are going too far- G Maps, GMail,Gsearch, etc, etc etc.
But this technology is something that will attract many new merchants, seeing that most other online payment processors charge at least 10% of the cost for processing it. This includes ads and payment processing. A huge step
Score: 0
|They can't even keep the email up and running, how are they going to pull this off and provide security?
Score: 0
|Huh? Are you talking about Gmail? I have been using Gmail since it came out and it has had VERY little downtime. When it does go down, it is usually only down for about a min or two...what have you been smoking?
Score: 0
|As I posted later in this thread, why use Google to shop when you can make money using something like www.ebates.com or even Fatwallet.com has a similar service.
If you go through Google, you will make nothing.
(Yes I know about their current special of $10 off for certain stores, but that isn't the same thing, thats just a promo to get people to use their service).
Score: 0
|While I like Google, I think this idea is just stupid(at least for the customer it is). Your FAR better off going through something like www.ebates.com to place orders because YOU make some extra money that way. With google, the only people making money will be google (thats their reason for doing this, I'm sure they get a percentage from the merchant for each purchase you make... with ebates you get the precentage).
This service isn't anything like what Paypal does. It shouldn't even be compared to Paypal.
Score: 0
|This sounds backward to me. You say,
"While I like Google, I think this idea is just stupid(at least for the customer it is). Your FAR better off going through something like
www.ebates.com
to place orders because YOU make some extra money that way. With google, the only people making money will be google (thats their reason for doing this," This seems like repackaging of the "Earn money by spending more money" philosophy. Why not just skip that step and charge a lower price to begin with? Inflating a price so you can give your customer cash back or a mail in rebate just creates confusion and takes advantage of people who aren't good at understanding economics. For the rebate crowd, they borrow our money at the time of purchase and then send it back 4 weeks later. It's an insult to our inteligence as well as our wallets. Why not just give a straight price? I hope Google will shoot straight on this one.
Score: 0
|TC17, I hardly feel it is an issue of money with Google rather than power. Remember, "Information is Power" Google has been striving for this power for several years now and it has gotten to the point that Microsoft and Yahoo have combined efforts to achive this power. Like Google, this is done unknowingly through your searches, emails, chats, etc. Myself, like many others have abandoned many google services because of their practice of storing your information and now, with this new rollout, this information is going to go alot further than your IP Addy and where your search leads to. I'd say, it's now getting VERY Personal and it scares the crap out of me. Take Heed to this People.
Score: 0
|The ease of use if very much evident and I guess it can't be easier. I don't have to remember all the different usernames and passwords for the websites that I go to and shop.
Google once again has done it...easy, simple, pretty, and clean interface as always. I just have to say: Go Google!
Score: 0
|This looks a lot more like Microsoft's Digital Locker and hardy anything like PayPal. Why the hell is PayPal brought up so much when it isn't similar in any way.
Score: 0
|Check out http://www.betanews.com
Check out http://fileforum.betanews.com
Both are nice sites. THey look promising.
Score: 0
|OK, it's tied to search but it's still just a wallet, something that Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others (remember RocketCash?) tried years ago. Technically, Yahoo's Wallet still exists but almost all the merchants on Yahoo Shopping have disabled it due to lack of consumer interest. I would really be surprised if Google can make this work, as currently described. I think it's far more likely that this is just a first step toward full PayPal functionality but Google won't admit it until they are fully prepared for battle. I doubt PayPal is fooled, though. Everyone knows what a Death Star under construction looks like.
Score: 0
|One could argue that paypal *is* a deathstar, and it aint under constuction, some good friends of mine have had some very bad experiences.
my suggestion is use a credit card if you can and think twice if you can't, you get absolutely no protection with such services despite what they might say
Score: 0
|Actually PayPal gave my money back 4 times from eBay sellers that didn't deliver the products.
Their protection might not be perfect, their service it's pretty expensive but it seems that it works, most of the time at least.
Score: 0
|"The service is available only to businesses that advertise through Google's network."
I don't think that's correct-- my understanding is that *IF* you advertise through Google's network you'll be able to get a discount on the Checkout service. But if you do NOT advertise with them you can still accept payments through their service on your website.
One source for this information is during the signup for Checkout-- They say "You'll also have an opportunity to link your Google AdWords account with Google Checkout to earn free transaction processing." - see https://checkout.google.com/seller/start.html for more info.
Score: 0
|Competition is always good. Regardless where they come from. Paypal is charging too much for it's service. I am hoping more player will come in. Yahoo and MSFT need to get into this too.
Score: 0
|thats cool check out here what else they have planned for http://www.rupya.com
Score: 0
|Wow.
Apparently Betanews needs to be renamed to,
'Pimp your Website'.
It's becoming an epidemic.
Quick, someone get some nurses in here, stat!
Score: 0
|more like... 'pimp your ugly freakin cluttered website'
his blog reminds me of the early days of the icq site, where it was voted most ugly website year after year
Score: 0
|Way to advertise your blog. I saw you doing the samething on digg. Nicely placed ads by goooooggggle
Score: 0
|Wait...he's a blogger *and* a digg user?
Well, I guess that pretty much sums it up. :)
Score: 0
|Dumb.
Yeah....I want Google taking care of all my personal information.
Yeah.....that's a good idea.
Google is the Devil.
Score: 0
|The Devil Wears Prada is a good film
Score: 0
|Ya know...if they'd ever actually *done* anything with all of that data other than target text-based ads, I might be a bit more inclined to attempt to follow your train of thought.
Unfortunately, it seems to have switched tracks into a never-ending loop. Getting a bit redundant, if you ask me.
...just sayin'.
Score: 0
|I'm all for awesome new google features, but this one just seems kind of dumb, compared to paypal.
The great thing about paypal is that you can deposit any amount of money into your account at any time and use it virtually all over the web.
As far as I can tell, with google checkout you HAVE to use your credit card with it (you can't accept money from other people?) and you can only use it at select google advertisers.
I guess that helps to ensure you only purchase from reliable websites, but still....
Score: 0
|It was never supposed to battle Paypal.
Score: 0
|PayPal was in the same position when it was launched. Google's service free to advertisers though? I'd say give it time and it will begin dominating through most merchants out there. Knowing Google, they will gradually improve the service to include more payment methods than just CCs.
Score: 0
|Sure, that's what they say now, just because it's too immature to take on PayPal. Wait until it's fully developed and see what Google's position becomes then.
Score: 0
|Actually PayPal might lock your account for no reason if "they suspect" you have too much money flowing thru it... That's insane but it might happen, it's stated in their TOS.
Score: 0
|