Google to Test PayPal Rival 268
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Google is set to introduce a test version of its GBuy online-payment service as early as this week, presaging a shake-up in the online-payments market now dominated by eBay's PayPal, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Here is how the service will work: Consumers who search for items like "shoes" or "strollers" on Google's search site will see text ads with a symbol or icon designating advertisers that accept GBuy payments. Shoppers normally would have clicked on an ad and been linked to that merchant's Web site. Now, while they will still be linked to the merchant's site, they will go through a different checkout process integrated with Google if they choose GBuy for their transaction. Details of the service could still change before Google's official GBuy announcement.'"
I wonder if they will be less shady than PayPal. (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope GBuy will be less evil, and that it will catch on so I can buy used PC and car parts from forum members again.
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
this really suits their other plans ;) (Score:5, Interesting)
This would nicely prevent frauds, as the payments will go thru google, a advertiser cannor report 0 sales even if sales was made. This would remove one cheating possibility, where as AdSense currently is plagued with click fraud, there won't be such a problem with this type of advertising.
More of a communal shopping cart (Score:5, Interesting)
I can see this fitting in well with their AdWords/AdSense system, but beyond that I don't see this as significant competition for PayPal.
Re:I wonder if they will be less shady than PayPal (Score:3, Interesting)
Competition AT LAST (Score:0, Interesting)
offerings of PayPal.Time for PayPal to trim the fat and get the finger out.
Google Micropayments (Score:5, Interesting)
The other big question would be whether Ebay will allow people to pay with Gbuy!
competition is good! (Score:5, Interesting)
my last horror story re: paypal was when I bought an online ebay item and there was no option to have shipping done (from this vendor) with insurance. the item was mailed 'media mail' which is UNCONFIRMED. the PO considers it confirmed delivery but the postman HIMSELF signs the delivery receipt! what good is that?? so my mailmain supposedly delivered it and signed for it himself. of course I never got the pkg.
I emailed the seller and no reply. he had 'confirmation' from the PO and so ignored me. I filed a case with the PO but they didn't really care (obviously). I tried calling paypal (emailing them, first) and they kept saying 'it was delivered so your claim is rejected'.
problem was: there was NO HUMAN looking at this so-called delivery receipt. the date was wrong (it was the wrong DECADE, too - what a blunder in their database!) and there was no signature online to prove it really did get delivered. it was a losing battle to explain this to them. they didn't care. they are on the side of the 'power sellers' and they know where their money is earned
if they think they can accept delivery confirmations that say "1900" as the year and then close my case, well, I hope they get some cosmic justice for all the scams and abuse from their customers. I hope google eats them alive.
the more powerful google gets, the more I do worry; but paypal needs to have some humble pie fed to them. its about time.
free as in beer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder if they will be less shady than PayPal (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, (Score:5, Interesting)
Do not talk for me, as I do not like Google too much, for one they treat their customer pretty bad. To the extent that they prohibit criticism of their AdSense "service" terms and conditions on participating sites.. [kottke.org]
And then some, their search engine is sucking a bit too much lately (personally I think search.yahoo.com returns more relevant results). And as you state, they are focusing in nothing and trying to compete with every technology available. As has been stated before they are a public company and as this they enter into the set named "Corporations" which only target and focus is to get more money for the shareholders. When their usual "ways" (i.e. the initial things they did to get money as Adsense in searches) stops to work they cant help but look for other ways of revenew, or die.
So, behold the new Google Inc. 10 years from now (if not less) Google will be what IBM was 20 years ago, and what Microsoft has been these 10 years.
(go ahead mod my day)
I just wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, currently there's no way I could sell stuff from Poland to other countries. The item mailing fee is okay. But any payments from outside, no matter how small, are associated with money transfer fee like $40-60. Or $200 if you pay when you get the item. Nobody's gonna buy $10 item and pat $60 for sending the $10 to me. They could send it in envelope... almost assuring some bastard in the polish mail service stealing it. Or they could send me some gift I don't need instead.
Paypal is present in Poland, of course. But it works one-way. I can pay through Paypal, but I can't receive money. I really hope Google kicks in and I finally can sell stuff outside Poland.
Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure you can even make a meaningful direct comparison between two different companies in what amounts to two different eras, but I want to know if you think that means that Google will go evil, but then see the light and turn themselves around? That's IBM. Microsoft still hasn't gotten there, of course.
Not that IBM is an angel but for a corporation that size to realize the truth, embrace open source (to whatever extent, obviously it's not complete) and change direction from "all the code you write on your computers belongs to us" to "we now sell computers where all the code including the OS belongs to you" is truly awe-inspiring.
If Microsoft tried to make a turn like that, their lil' blogger bus would roll right over.
Re:Again?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Again?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, depends... Do you believe the average human is good or evil? And does a good person have what it takes to recognize evil when he sees it? And if people at Google are above average and already good, can they continue to hire and be able to only hire "good" people.
I just hope the Geegees aren't going to turn nasty and suddenly warrant a big anti-monopoly order or somesuch. I just couldn't take the smug look on Bill's face...
I doubt it would be smug because if anyone gets taken to court over monopoly issues it means Microsoft is fair game or that Microsoft is no longer a monopoly (aka moot point).
Re:competition is good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Because that would be theft, and they'd go to jail. However if they take it and deny all knowledge, good luck getting anyone to look into it. That's the case here in the UK, at least. There was a mailman near where I live, he wasn't even stealing mail, just dumping it instead of delivering it. He got away with that for several months, until someone actually stumbled across where he'd dumped some of the mail. Up to that point, complaints about missing items seemingly fell on deaf ears.
PayPalSucks (Score:1, Interesting)
Check it PayPal Sucks [paypalsucks.com]
Google has the AdSense thing, that makes GBuy really interesting for advertisers who (IMO) will not doubt for support GBuy if they are advertising with Google...
Now must be good for the users/buyers, i want to test it.
Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, (Score:5, Interesting)
then see the light and turn themselves around? That's IBM.
They aren't all the way there yet, they still do some sleazy stuff. For example, they have spammed Wikipedia with their AlphaWorks/DeveloperWorks articles (as in: added links themselves to lots of different articles as part of an instituted policy and been placed on the blacklist as a result).
Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, (Score:3, Interesting)
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
It's not just firearms... (Score:5, Interesting)
and last year, during the Xbox360 shortage, and people were postings 360 scams on ebay, left and right. Paypal was freezing first, asking questions later, for people selling 360s. Unfortunatly, the general public probably approves of this, judging by the number of people who paid $600 for an Xbox that never arrived, and were demanding more oversight from ebay.
Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep seeing people say that, but no matter what I search for, I can't make spam sites appear on the first pages of results.
I just tried again with the following search terms, "tuna", "the community solution", "honda", "viagra" and despite having a fair few spammy or vague keywords there I couldn't see any non relevant results. What are you searching for?
Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, (Score:4, Interesting)