Google CEO Confirms Online Payment System

didde writes "Reuters is reporting on statements that Google's CEO Eric Schmidt had made regarding Google's upcoming payment system. Apparently they're not looking to compete with PayPal." From the article: "Schmidt said Google does not intend to offer a 'person-to-person stored-value payments system' like PayPal's, in which money briefly resides in PayPal's control during the transaction, but he did not give details of how the Google system would differ."

gBay?

[Evangelion]

When is google going to be building an ecom site to go along with this?

Currency

[Decameron81]

Maybe they are going to offer Googlecoins as the first form of virtual currency?

Introducing the Google Credit Card

[westcoaster004]

Hmmm... this just sounds like another credit card to me. If it is only designed to bring money from consumers to businesses (and Google), then it appears to be just another credit card!

Need 2 things

[Dancin_Santa]

First it needs an escrow which would enable greater trust between transacting parties. It also needs the ability to reverse a payment for when transactions are not fulfilled to satisfaction.

Paypal has the first, but the second leaves much to be desired. Once the payment is made, there is little recourse if it turns out that the transaction was bogus. If Google can implement something like this, it would push it way over the top.

well what about

[the_mighty_$]

Schmidt said Google does not intend to offer a 'person-to-person stored-value payments system' like PayPal's, in which money briefly resides in PayPal's control during the transaction

Well what about a 'person-to-person stored-value payments system' like PayPal's, in which money doesn't briefly reside in Google's control during the transaction but rather gets directly transfered to the merchant.

I personnally have always thought that PayPal's way of doing it (keeping the money in your 'PayPal account') was pretty lame.

My guess/hope

[metamatic]

I'm guessing and hoping that Google is going to introduce the first viable micropayment system on the web. If anyone can do it, they can.

Beta?

[Moiche]

They may have to skip the beta this time. I don't think I'd trust a pre-release version of the software to transfer money.

me: I transferred 100$ for his pog collection. Where did it go?

google support: But it's beta! And Beta means we can fuck up from time to time!

Also -- not competing with Paypal because they aren't going to store money? Sure, but won't google add that functionality the moment it becomes commercially advantageous? Not to mention the fact that I think for most people, an instanteous credit to your credit card (or bank account or whatever) when you get paid for you antique pog collection is not such a bad thing.

Final thought -- for every post in this thread complaining about the number of Google stories on /. -- God kills a kitten. What -- prove me wrong.

--Moiche

article also mentions Froogle

[sczimme]

The company also operates a price-comparison shopping engine called Froogle, which analysts think could one day become the heart of a full-fledged e-commerce system.

1) Froogle +

2) link to product +

3) "I'm feeling lucky" ==

4) profit?

Perspective

[deutschemonte]

I think it is important to put this in the "Google Mindset" if you will: Everything Google does is related to search.

They made GMail to allow you to store all your messages you ever send/receive and then give you a powerful tool to search through them.

Google Maps is just a nice compliment/interface to Google Local.

And the list goes on. So what can Google do to bring the power of search to a payments system?

My guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has Froogle, and Froogle isn't eBay, so GMoney (hehehe) won't be working in the same space as eBay and PayPal per-se. What remains to be seen is whether Google can actually use their own electronic payment system in conjunction with their Froogle search service effectively. These are all just my personal guesses as to what Google is doing of course.

Re:Perspective

[BewireNomali]

interesting point. very.

the search correlation is that they can now separate the link-clickers from the product buyers. Further, they can gauge your spending habits and further target ads to maximize effectiveness. Your mom's birthday is in august, let's say, and you always buy something online around that time to get over to her. They can target mom-like gifts around that time, increasing the liklihood of the purchase, and they get cash off the transaction, the clickthrough, and the sale. I think anyway.

Then they start creating a database of faithful online shoppers and start charging premium prices to advertise to that crowd.

You're totally right. It all has to do with the information. The don't actually handle money, they assume none of the liability, and they don't have to expand into a core business that is not an intrinsic strength.

Shit, man.

Will it be regulated? FDIC insured?

[hellfire]

My main problem with Paypal is that Paypal has every right to say "go fuck yourself" if something goes wrong or a customer gets screwed. Credit card companies cannot do this. If I don't get my merchandise, I can issue a charge back and get my money back. With paypal it's a crapshoot as to if I get my money back. Paypal has also been notorious for taking money from people's accounts without authorization.

Credit card companies are bastards, paypal is full of bastards, but credit cards are regulated. Bastard or not, as a consumer I want to be able to tell a company "go to hell" if they try to screw with my money.

This is what I want in a google payment service.

Re:Refreshing Change

[danharan]

Refreshing change? I interpret what Google's CEO said as "we won't just compete with Paypal". Sounds to me like they don't want to be pigeon-holed because they are far more ambitious than that. Perhaps they are gunning for the place currently occupied by credit card companies and processors?

It's not cut-throat, it's just business :)

think i got it figured out...

[luckynoone]

I am positive I have it all figured out. Google has searching, and offers up ads on the side for products. Google has Froogle, a searching service which indexes store products for display as well. Well, think about the next logical step... Google will provide hosting and payment services for people and companies selling products. Consumers will love it because their CC # will be going through Google, which they trust, versus a small site. On top of that, consumers will be able to find what they are looking for without running into broken links, unfriendly designs, or going through site after site. Google will get some small $ for each transaction (perhaps a percentage). Sellers will love it because they won't have to worry about server uptime as much, payment systems, or security... plus they have the worlds' biggest customer base at their fingers. This powerful move will literally turn Google into the worlds biggest store. Everyone wins. Buyers / Sellers / Google. Well, not everyone wins. Ebay sure won't win. Verisign won't win. PayPal won't win. Yahoo won't win.

gmoney... gbank... gpay?

[Hallow]

*sigh*, I'm such a google fanboy it's not funny.

I can see a gmoney app - bye-bye quicken and ms-money. I could also see google starting a "virtual" bank -- no storefront, but you can still have an account (probably as a wholly owned subsidiary due to banking regs)..

But, what I really hope their new system might be... something to compete with paytrust (gpay?). I used to love paytrust, but through a series of aquisitions the website/app -- as well as customer service -- has gone downhill. Don't get me wrong, I still like and use them, but they've lost my loyalty as a customer.

For anyone who doesn't know -- paytrust is an online bill payment service, kinda like what your bank probably already provides. Except you can have all your paper bills sent to them, and they capture most of your electronic bills too, so that you can then send payments all from one place, schedule them to be paid automatically, etc.

Re:My guess/hope

[fleener]

Yep, I'm guessing micropayments with a special emphasis on courting newspaper web sites. It would finally make Google News profitable, sending Google users to Google clients.

It may not be real "money" at all

[MythoBeast]

Let's take SecondLife as an example. They have a monetary system in the game that allows you to convert dollars into their units of trade and transfer those units for goods. The sellers of the virtual goods can then transfer the units back to real-world cash. They aren't a bank, they're a game, and you're paying for extra "credit" in the game, not transferring money into a different unit.

If Google were to take advantage of that, we should consider what this would mean if we could hook it into email systems. Let's say you have to have an "account" with them in order to send email to me. I can set up accounts and give them to my friends. You have to transfer $.25 from your account to my account in order to send mail to me. If you aren't sending junk mail to me then I immediately refund the money. If you are, then I keep the money and eventually cash out the spare for my personal use.

White lists could be created for your friends to auto-refund their money. Blacklists would delete the spam before you see it, money staying in your account.

Voila, spam-proof email system. I'm liking this idea. Maybe I'll go write it myself...

Re:My guess/hope

[sootman]

Ah yes, I *want* to spend my day thinking "hmm... is it worth 2 cents to me to read this article? Here's one over here for just a penny..." You should read this: the best article about micropayments ever written [openp2p.com], and another one just in case [shirky.com]. The problem with micropayments is *not* the technology. It's that nobody wants them. Period. (OK, maybe not "nobody." But, say, 99%+ of the world. Close enough.)