Google Testing Online Payment Service

By Ed Oswald | Published June 16, 2006, 11:58 AM

Google confirmed Thursday that it was working on and beginning to test an online payment system, but said it was nothing like PayPal and would not compete with the market-leading service. Instead, Google is looking to solve "new problems in the payments space," says CEO Eric Schmidt.

Analysts had long suspected that Google was developing a payment service, but most had seen it as a competitor to PayPal. Thursday's comments are the first public indication of the company's plans, although several questions still linger. Google still is staying mum on specifics.

What is known from Schmidt's comments at a meeting hosted by Conde Nast's Portfolio magazine is that the service would focus on advertisers, and was not necessarily intended for the general consumer. He declined to explain further.

Analysts disagree, however, saying Google is mincing words. Since it is one of the largest purveyors of online advertising, it makes sense to offer the program to that customer base first. But analysts see no reason why Google would not -- and should not -- expand to the average consumer.

Rumors of a Google payment service first surfaced in June of last year. The Wall Street Journal at the time reported of rumblings among industry executives that the search giant had plans for a "Google Wallet." Also last year, Google filed incorporate an entity called Google Payment Corp. in California.

Comments

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So what are you disputing? That it's coming out or not? The link you sent us contained this info:

*Paypal vs GBuy: During the beta phase, Google will not charge merchants for its payment service. After some period, Google may charge 1.5% to 2%, in-line to slightly below that of PayPal.*

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Thanks, I'll send a check or money order via snail mail instead.

Paypal sucks. Google is the Devil.

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No you won't, because I don't accept check/money orders. It's either paypal, or forget it.

Besides, why would you send someone a check? Did you not know that if people get a hold of your checking account, there isn't ANYTHING you can do to prevent fraud? Once someone gets a valid routing number/ checking # they can dip into your account, steal money.

you are opening yourself up to another set of issues.

Paypal, even suck, is STILL better than giving somone a paper, and they can simply say they didn't receive it.. Money Orders.

Your checking account, is giving people your personal info. That isn't smart.

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I would rather give a stranger my checking acct. number than give it to Paypal or Google.

So paypal is never going to "take" money from your checking account if they "need" it? Riiiiiiight.

I will never give any bank number to Paypal or Google.

I also will not do business with people who only accept Paypal. It's their loss not mine. It's a buyers market, not a sellers. :)

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They certainly haven't taken money out of my accounts. Everything online has risk, but I'd rather be able to give my bank details to one central base, then 50 different people online and hope for the best.

I have nothing against Paypal, personally. They've always provided a fine and stable service for me.

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Actually there's so many people buying online now a days it's more like a sellers market. If your selling something you only need one out of the countless millions to want your product in order to sell it. Unless your doing a sort of company large production type deal and even then no one still needs your money, there's plenty of others out there. Now a days online is more of a sellers market then a buyers.

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Finally a marketing solution that will help all kinds of consumers!

It's called mass media marketing!

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While I've not had too much trouble with Paypal, hopefully a little competition will lower the fees that Paypal charges. I do a lot of little transactions throughout the month with Paypal that all add up. It'd be nice to not have to tack so much extra money on for each transaction.

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go google

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Google sucks.

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Ya, that is why they are barely surviving.

[/sarcasm]

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I hope they do decide to take on paypal because i find it amusing when i recieve those paypal scam emails in my inbox telling people to sign in to their accounts using the link provided and knowing some people are actualy stupid enough to do it.

With Google there would be twice as many:)

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- ignore -

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Finally! If anyone is more EVIL than Google, it's PayPal.

I am glad to see Google coming up with an alternative. Paypal has screwed me over 2 times, and they make it too easy to suspend your account from bogus complaints.

AND before you b****.. read these:

http://www.paypalwarning.com/
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
http://commercial-archive.com/123707.php
http://openstuff.net/index.py/paypal

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well, as someone being in the process of suffering from paypals evil, i have to agree. they awarded me a claim, yet still only refunded me %25 of my money. why should they get %75 of it from a bad transaction?

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If you read the article correctly, Google is denying that it would compete against Paypal, therefor being useless to a slug like you.

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You are aware that paypalwarning and paypalsucks are just advertisement sites for http://www.995merchantaccounts.com/

I know PayPal has its problems but I wouldn't want to read about it from a bunch of websites created for advertisement only.

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