Google Re-Refunds Video Purchases

holymodal writes "In a new post to the Google blog Bindu Reddy, the Google Video product manager, admits that only offering refunds via Google Checkout was a bad idea: 'We should have anticipated that some users would see a Checkout credit as nothing more than an extra step of a different (and annoyingly self-serving) kind. Our bad.' Google now plans to issue customers a full credit card refund, while allowing them to keep the Checkout credit and extending the life of purchased videos another six months."

Good job Google

This is again an example of how a company should deal with their customers. Thank you Google.

(man...I wish I had bought around $4000 in Google Videos :( )

Re:Good job Google

Yes, I'm sure if people had known they were going to get a check-out credit and their money refunded, they'd have actually used the service. As it stands, however, google will be out about 10 bucks for this decision.

Re:Good job Google

Yes, I'm sure if people had known they were going to get a check-out credit and their money refunded, they'd have actually used the service.

Ok, I am the guy that actually tried to buy one of their videos. Unfortunately I couldn't because I needed an American credit card. Brilliant.

Buying stuff on the Internet is hard as hell. I don't mean buying stuff that gets delivered in a package - that is easy enough to do over the Internet and works just fine worldwide. But when it comes to buying bits and bytes, nobody wants to sell you anything. None of the music stores support my country. None of the video selling/rental stores support my country. What the hell? Limiting your availability geographically is harder than just doing nothing. They walk the extra mile to have _less_ customers? I think the only stuff I can actually buy online that gets sent electronically is Virtual Console stuff on the Wii.

Re:Good job Google

Unfortunately, they have international trade laws to deal with. Or, more likely, they just want to charge everyone a different price and haven't decided how much money they can milk your country for, and setting the wrong price would poison future sales.

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This is slashdot: "Waaah! America is trying to push their fascist copyright on the rest of the world! They're the nazi bullies of the 21st century."

The next day... "Why wont America sell copyrighted material to me?! Americans are so ego-centric. They proba

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if someone from a country which doesn't respect your copyrights decides to pay you anyway I'd think the sensible thing to do would be to let them ;) after all it's basically money for nothing.

The real reason why things like music sites restrict geographic

Re:Good job Google

Once again, you have failed to learn the most important lesson of all.

Slashdot: Not just one person. Duh?

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Copyright is to blame in both cases. If not for copyright law (and laws like the DMCA that reinforce it), everyone would have access to all the material in existence, no matter where they lived. Google doesn't want to sell a particular file to you? No prob

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Buying stuff on the Internet is hard as hell. I don't mean buying stuff that gets delivered in a package - that is easy enough to do over the Internet and works just fine worldwide. But when it comes to buying bits and bytes, nobody wants to sell you anyth

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I work for the e-commerce section of a company that has an international online store (of bits and bytes, not physical products). The effort to add an additional country vastly exceeds that to check somebody's country and deny them access. We're trying (ha

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But who will refund your childhood?

Re:Good job Google

This is again an example of how a company should deal with their customers. Thank you Google.

Companies should offer difficult-to-use refunds and only when called on it should they do the honest thing and provide a proper refund?
It's good to see what Google is doing now (and espcially so given that there is effectively a double-refund), but really, they should had done this at the outset (it would have cost Google less also).

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Granted. They probably just weren't thinking about a possible negative reaction. Using Google Checkout for refunds makes sense because they no longer have to worry about expired or cancelled credit cards, etc. Not to mention, by keeping the money all in

Re:Good job Google

I don't expect everyone to make the right decision every time. I do expect the ones that want my respect to be able to correct their mistake when it's appearent to them.

They get kudos from me, though as another person joked I doubt the $10 extra they are now out is going to hit their bottom line that hard.

Re:Good job Google

It's good to see what Google is doing now (and espcially so given that there is effectively a double-refund), but really, they should had done this at the outset (it would have cost Google less also).

Everybody fucks up. You can judge their character by what they do next. My (very cheap) hosting company screwed up a few times in the first few months I was with them (a couple of billing problems and some unscheduled downtime), but I was happy to stay with them because they refunded me a month's payment and doubled the amount of bandwidth I was allocated. Apple lost my laptop when I sent it in for repair, and it took them four weeks to admit this and then two to replace it (with one that was DOA, and needed sending in for repair immediately). In both cases, better procedures could probably have avoided the initial screw up, but this what these are is only obvious in hindsight. Something will always go wrong, and people will always make the occasional wrong choice. They can do nothing better than act quickly to correct their mistakes. I will always recommend a company that is willing to admit their errors and fix them.

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I wonder if you (and others) would accept the apology if it were Microsoft instead of Google...

Re:Good job Google

I wonder if you (and others) would accept the apology if it were Microsoft instead of Google...

Why don't you spend a few dozen hours looking for a time Microsoft publically admitted a mistake then forked over cash and you can enlighten us?

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After reading the blog post, I felt like it was an honest apology. They thought that it would be easier for all involved to just give a google checkout credit instead of going through the task of tracking down everyone and making sure that their credit-ca

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This is again an example of how a company should deal with their customers. Thank you Google.

I started to write a reply about how I thought they were exceedingly generous and whatnot even overly so because no one else would have done this.

But they screwed up and tried to fuck with their (small) customer base first. Early adopters if you will, lef

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No, you'd get $8000 back ($4000 credited back to your card and $4000 is Google checkout). 100% ROI for 1 year is not half bad. Plus, the money bought your entertainment for the year in between.

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No, it means that if the credit card you bought the videos with expired, they'll need a new one to credit it to, otherwise it's impossible to give you a credit card refund.

Company admits Mistake: film at 11

This is one thing I do respect Google (and a pitiful few other companies) for - admitting mistakes. So many hassles and PR disasters could be averted by just admitting you FUBARed and are willing to make amends. Hell, our foreign policy could learn from that, even.

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Hell, our foreign policy could learn from that, even.

Hell, our President could learn from that, even.

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I agree. On the other hand, sometimes... people make it hard [gadling.com].

Scourge of unnecessary hyperbole

So many hassles and PR disasters could be averted by just admitting you FUBARed

I agree that Google's initial offering was erroneous and distasteful, but do you really feel that they fucked up beyond all recognition?

b

Not exactly ..

... and extending the life of purchased videos another six months.

I think he means "extending the life of rented videos another six months." I wish companies would just be clear on the fact that you aren't actually buying anything, if the seller can revoke your privilege to use it at any time. I'm really tired of government and corporations trying to undermine the idea of "property", of what is mine and what is not.

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I'd love if Google had designed it this way. This is really, really bad for promoters of DRM, of which Google, conspicuously, isn't one.

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I have to wonder if the six month extension exists specifically so some third party can create a workaround for the DRM, allowing people to keep their videos forever. Google obviously can't release such a thing without violating contracts with the media pr

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I can't find the reference, but didn't Apple say that if they ever shutdown the Apple Store they'd release keys to permanently unlock the purchased content?

I wonder if it was on purpose

I actually wonder if Google planned on revoking the DRM movies the whole time. It's not hard for me to imagine myself thinking that way if I was the head of Google--give a first class lesson on why DRM sucks, that even normal people (albeit those who

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All I have to say is that Slashdotters come up with the most bizarre theories.

Fronting a bunch of cash to launch a product, planning all the while to eventually shut it down, going through the hassle of refunding all the purchases, all to... teach the publ

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Frankly, that theory about Google's DRM plan is just dumb. But your strings-attached metaphor for DRM is very good! (One of the best I've heard, in fact.)

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It's like everything you buy has a long, long string literally attached to it; and at any time your new tv could start jerking toward your front door, outside, and back up the street to corporate headquarters.

If Google wanted to keep the money and the sale

The reason they used Checkout in the first place..

..is also given in the article:

We planned to give these users a full refund or more. And because we weren't sure if we had all the correct addresses, latest credit card information, and other billing challenges, we thought offering the refund in the form of Google Checkout credits would entail fewer steps and offer a better user experience.

Well, they have a point that Checkout credits would entail fewer steps, but I think Google tried to avoid a bit of work here as how I understand it, with Checkout credits, the Google Video users themselves have to make sure the refund gets to them, but with the credit card refund, Google has to make sure everyone gets their refund.

Still, they admitted their mistake and corrected it, which is good.

Re:The reason they used Checkout in the first plac

Except the blog still says that users have to start the refund process, by providing up-to-date information for themselves. So its still in the user's hands.

Still, wish I'd bought some Google videos, now. :)

An Interesting Precedent

I think that this decision on Google's part makes a very interesting precedent for any other vendor of DRMed goods. In order to have good customer service, Google is refunding all the money they've previously gained while they were in business. Although as other have stated, that may not be much, it's almost certainly caused them to lose whatever money they thought they had earned through it.

The message this sends to other companies in a similar business seems clear: "Don't ever leave the business so that your customers can't access their media. If you do, and you plan to ever do business again, it will cost you more than you earned throughout the entire process. Customers are effectively loaning you their money for as long as they can play their content."

What does this mean? I'm going to guess that if they listen to this message that they will glance nervously at each other as they slowly change over to non DRM content. Since that seems to be the trend currently, I would suppose that this can only accelerate it.

A precedent others need not follow

Google is doing the right thing. Do you think the RIAA or even Apple would? I think not. Just because Google sets a good example doesn't mean everyone will follow; I'd read those terms and conditions carefully, because I expect most of the drm-laden crap y

Still Not Convinced

Yes, the apology and refudnd was good, but as far as I am concerned it should never happened anyway, not as an oversight, not as a policy. Google shouldn't be a company that needs to be told that that sort of thing is bad practice, it should know it anyway

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I just wander what caused the complete round about turn, sounds like they found someone in a position of power who was too money orientated got replaced.

Based on my time in the corporate world, I'd guess they were close to having something else marketab

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Come on -- Google is huge, but it's still a fairly young company in largely uncharted territory. They screwed up, and instead of playing hardball about it, they copped to the mistake, gave their customers back more than they bought, and apologized. There i

whatever else they are at Google ...

they're not stupid

Here's how the other companies would've done it...

Sooner or later all DRM companies are going to shut off content people thought they owned.

Microsoft will simply say that your out of luck and what are you going to going to do about it.

Steve Jobs would announce that the devoted will now be able to buy all their content over again, but it'll be even cooler this time (and the crowd will cheer him over it).

Google says "oops, our bad, here's a refund. In fact here's a DOUBLE refund".

Re:Here's how the other companies would've done it

me i would say that it should be law that your drm method has a Non Revokeable permanent unlock code for just this kind of case (or have say 3 different folks split the method of breaking your drm with instructions to release if you don't do ACTION every 3

Definitely not evil yet

I know periodically Google gets involved in things that seem to show they're drifting to the dark side of giant ass-raping corporatism, but amazingly obvious pro-customer decisions like this show that there is at least a significant amount of "not Evil" left in the heart of Google.

This is the kind of behavior you expect from a local mom and pop store or some other small business who wants to make you happy more than they want to screw you out of $5 just because they can.

Seeing that Google is taking care of end-of-product-lifed customers is going to make people a lot more comfortable taking a risk on future Google products. I know that if they do something else I'm not sure will last but sounds good, I'll go ahead and buy. I don't think I would have before.

Not good enough!

If you have invested in time in amassing a collection of Google videos (I know, I know, but hypothetically speaking), neither Google nor anyone else should have the right to reverse that sale at their leisure, forcing you to re-amass the same collection by other means. Even if they compensate you extra -- that isn't the point. A collection-refund-recollection process is not what you signed up for. The only fair thing to do is to offer software to remove the DRM so that everybody can keep whatever they collected. Nothing else even comes close -- not even Google's sweet little maneuver where you cancel a DRM service and threaten Draconian consequences, and then move up the compensation and the disconnection deadline a few days later, so that everyone will talk about how nice they are (gee, being nice is easy, all you have to do is threaten to be a bastard before you do what you were planning to do anyway) -- so that the public will focus on that instead of focusing on the matter at hand: Google just unilaterally revoked thousands of already-completed sales. This is wrong. The amount of compensation is just an attempt to make up for the wrong, but it doesn't make it any less wrong.

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Unfortunately, the DMCA makes that illegal. Providing software to bypass a copy protection system is against the law (in the US); I believe this applies to even your own products. But regardless, it doesn't matter as they'd have to go to every single con

This still doesn't change how I feel...

Everything stands in my comment [slashdot.org] other than the monetary issue. I still think this is a pretty evil thing to do and shows you exactly what "defective by design" means. Could you imagine Wal-Mart coming and repossessing your DVDs because they don't want you watching them anymore? Would you really care if they slapped some money on the table as they were leaving?

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What's your point?

Does it matter if they did it for the PR, because they want to keep the customers happy so they can make more money off them, because they think they can get better employees for cheaper if those employees think they are working for a c

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sorry, it sure looked like you were jumping to the cynical response. Maybe I'm a bit hair trigger on such things, because everyone seems to want to bash google at every opportunity.

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While I do agree, my thankfulness that Google lived up to its name far far outweighs annoyance that they didn't immediately offer a full CC based refund.