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

[GweeDo]

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

[Cyberllama]

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

[thetagger]

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

[Cecil]

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.

Re:

[pla]

Unfortunately, they have international trade laws to deal with.

"International trade laws" don't say that he can't buy most crap online (unless he lives in an ITAR-sanctioned place, then ignore all this).

Quite the opposite, in most cases, thus the necessity of Hollywood buying DMCA-like scams in various countries, to give their pathetic attempts at region coding some teeth.

See, the problem with AllOfMP3 had nothing to do with its actual legality - On those grounds, the RIAA itself have more than a few

Re:

[Tacvek]

Well remember that on the average song there are many many different right holders. (Technically there are only a few true holders of copyright, but by tradition certain parts of the protected rights get sold to others in an exclusive contract. I'd be willing to say that quite a few of the complications of the US copyright laws are directly attributable to the entertainment industry.

There is copyright to the music, copyright to the lyrics, copyright to the performance (I've never been sure if this is a a

Re:

[Monkeyman334]

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 probably couldn't find my country on a map. They are only hurting themselves."

Are you seeing a connection here, maybe? Bueller? I understand that music companies want ridiculous profits, and you can rest satisfied that the companies aren't squeezing you enough

Re:

[petermgreen]

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 distribtion are both predatory pricing and having to live within thier geographically limited distribution contracts.

Re:Good job Google

[Sj0]

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

Slashdot: Not just one person. Duh?

Re:

[bentcd]

Once again, you have failed to learn the most important lesson of all.
Slashdot: Not just one person. Duh?

It may be some sort of twisted solipsism [wikipedia.org]: the world consists of only me and one other person - who pretends to be 8 billion different ones. The comforting thing about this twist, I suppose, is that you can easily convince yourself that it's that /other/ guy who's really fucked up :-)

Re:

[Mr2001]

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 problem, buy it from someone else, or download it for free.

Re:

[pmatchstick]

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 t

Re:

[bdo19]

May I suggest buying US insert-music-store-here gift cards from eBay? It doesn't make the situation any less frustrating in principle, but it might be a good practical solution. I know a guy here in the US that gets Japanese iTunes gift cards so he buy their music.

Re:

[swedub]

It's nothing personal. It's just that for some retailers, our credit card merchant account only (potentially) provides restitution against credit card fraud if they have verified AVS (Address Verification System) and have signature confirmation of delivery to a billing address. Most of which is hard to refute even with proof. So one of the first steps against international credit card fraud is refusing transactions if you can't verify AVS. That pretty much limits you to the United States, Canada and the Uni

get an American Express (if you can)

[Lanoitarus]

American Express cards arent idenfitiable by region based only on their card numbers like with MC/Visa. So just grab one of those assuming you are in a country they are permitted and use it freely for online/america purchases. I encountered the same issue as you (in reverse) when trying to use a US credit card to refill a UK sim card online-- no US cards allowed. My American Express worked fine.

Re:

[cbhacking]

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 (hard) to support more countries and payment methods, but it's not trivial at all.

Problems range from standard internationalization issues that anybody selling software overseas encounters to legal trade limits (usually not something that can be legally circu

Re:

[cbhacking]

Interesting... I'm a developer, and have nothing to do with sales, but I wasn't under the impression that foreign Visa cards or such would be blocked. That's very interesting indeed. Except for the currency conversion and such, which would already be handled anyhow since physical goods are available for purchase, I wouldn't expect there to be any reason online stores couldn't take your card. Very odd...

Re:

[Monkeyman334]

I only purchased a couple episodes of MacGyver, to relive my childhood memories of the show. I'm still disappointed that Google will not be refunding my hour of time.

Re:

[Ohreally_factor]

But who will refund your childhood?

Re:Good job Google

[whoever57]

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).

Re:

[mr_zorg]

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 house, it would cost them less. They probably figured all the Google Fanboys were already using Checkout anyway. :) At least they admit they screwed up. And keeping BOTH refunds? Wow. Extremely generous.

Re:

[yesteraeon]

And keeping BOTH refunds? Wow. Extremely generous.

Seems that way. But they may not have had much of a choice. Presumably the alternative to giving both refunds would have been to take back the money paid into customers' Google Checkout accounts and issue a credit card refund instead. Ok. But what about people who already spent the money that was refunded into their GCheckout accounts? No cash for them?? Google could assume that because they spent the money that those customers were fine with receiving refund in that form. But inevitably some people would

Re:Good job Google

[Chyeld]

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:

[rtb61]

I expect companies to always make the right decision every time, I am a customer, what else would a customer expect, a company to make wrong decisions.

Google was just trying it on, to see how much negative reaction it generated and based upon their existing marketing created image whether they could get away with the more profitable solution of basically ripping the customer off.

Fortunately for Google video customers google's all so shiny image is developing a considerable tarnish and they had to buckle

Re:Good job Google

[TheRaven64]

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.

Re:

[umbra_dweller]

Agreed, they obviously should have done this from the start. But a lot of companies would whine, pout, and be stubborn about their decision. Google is not only changing their mind, but they are doing it quickly and they are giving a bonus by letting people keep the google credit they already gave and extending the subscriptions. They even publicly admit that it was (or at least appeared to be, in their words) a self serving action. Considering the behavior of companies these days, that all seems like pr

Re:

[Film11]

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

Re:

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

MicroSoft would have to apologize for something first?

Re:

[jimbug]

Yes, because it's a real apology. They even said in the quote, "our bad". They weren't dancing around it in the least.

Re:Good job Google

[pokerdad]

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?

Re:

[Bishop923]

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-card information was still up to date. I could see myself making a similar decision and I empathize. Ultimately, refunding the money AND letting everyone keep the checkout credit is a nice thing that they simply didn't need to do. On top of that, most com

Re:

[earnest murderer]

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, left out in the cold because they decided not to stand behind their product. A minor scam since you can still get your money back, but a scam just the same. Not a good idea when you're trying get financial and shopping services off the ground at the same time

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Admitting and reversing a bad decision is an excellent thing per se, but as long as purchased videos ("downloaded to own", in their own terminology) will still expire, ever, the more fundamental wrong has not been made right.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:

[zigziggityzoo]

Don't forget, you're also keeping that $4000 worth of entertainment, bringing your total ROI to 200% (provided the content purchased was actually worth the cost... Google didn't seem to think so. In fact, they essentially paid you to watch it).

Re:

[HUADPE]

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

[griffjon]

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.

Re:

[ScrewMaster]

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

Hell, our President could learn from that, even.

Re:

[Chyeld]

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

Scourge of unnecessary hyperbole

[g0at]

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

Re:

[edumacator]

Damn you...you beat me to my line...

How do you Fix something that's FUBAR?

[Noishe]

It it's FU beyond all repair, how do they fix it?

Not exactly ..

[ScrewMaster]

... 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.

Re:

[Ochu]

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.

Re:

[AusIV]

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 providers, but they might be able to make it very easy for such a thing to get produced.

Re:

[TheSkyIsPurple]

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?

Re:

[MarsDefenseMinister]

Actually, it's the other way around, and you're just not looking at this the right way. Without any government, it's up to you to safeguard your property. Otherwise, you rely on government to keep record of title, and enforce your right for you.

In this case, you paid your money for a service, not a product. The contract was clear, and if you didn't understand what you were buying, well, too bad. It's an incentive to be smart, that's for sure.

Now if Google wants to call the process a "purchase" then that's f

I wonder if it was on purpose

[rastoboy29]

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 would buy movies via Google!) could understand.

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

Re:

[CoughDropAddict]

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 public a lesson? I'd love to see the meeting of middle management where that gets suggested.

Re:

[rastoboy29]

Why on earth would you clue middle management on such a thing?  Or for that matter, consult them about anything?

Better yet, why have middle management?

It was a half-joke, ya know.

Re:

[MenTaLguY]

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.)

Re:

[Technician]

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, all they would have had to do was exchange the string tethered one for one without the string. A simple exchange for DRM free copies would have sufficed. I presume this was not up to Google to offer. The actual content copyright holders probably nixed

The reason they used Checkout in the first place..

[bomanbot]

..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

[Kashra]

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

[Naerbnic]

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

[MattW]

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 you buy has escape hatches in case of emergency built into the T&C so they don't have to refund jack.

Re:

[Artifex]

Actually, I suspect the consumers get last place in the line of creditors when these ventures fail, as many will. So some of them may not care much.

Still Not Convinced

[JamesRose]

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. However, the people they double refund is a very nice touch which most companies wouldn't have done to make up for a mistake- I just wander what caused the complete round about turn, sounds like they found someone in a position of power who was too money

Re:

[faloi]

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 marketable in the video world (as part of their "refocusing"), and that it would hit soon enough that they figured people wouldn't have completely forgotten about their last...faux pas.

My betting money says that if they weren't about to launch something in roughl

Re:

[mike2R]

Check this [theregister.co.uk]

Bootnote

When we phoned Google about its video about-face, a spokesperson gave us one other (slightly) newsworthy tip. Starting today, at Google News, certain search results will be linked to related YouTube videos from site partners like the BBC and Reuters, and with an extra click, these videos can be viewed right there on the results page - without opening a new browser window or browser tab. Expect an official Google blog post later today. ®

Re:

[eck011219]

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 is no other company of that size that I know of that has ever done that (without being ordered by a court to do so). Of course it never should have happened. But companies are run by people, people make dumb mistakes sometimes, and the measure of a person O

Re:

[John Nowak]

Whatever happened to the word "oriented"? I'll have to conversate with someone about this.

Re:

[xerxesdaphat]

It's the proper spelling, you daft twat. `Oriented' is just a variant spelling popular in US `English' -- use `orientated' if you don't want to look foolish everywhere else.

Re:

[Ohreally_factor]

Dude, I like the Mingus .sig. We should go to the Chinese massage parlor one of these days and get oriented. =) First one's one me.

Re:

[John Nowak]

*ahem* Carry on then!

Interesting...

[MrUbiquitousness]

Now, business savvy people know that what Google offered originally was nothing worth offering, and it's even in the post, they knew the proper course of action.

If I was in Google's shoes I would have done it exactly as they did, offer some reimbursal that they knew wouldn't fly; for 2 reasons:

1. If enough people did bite and just take it, they save some cash
2. If people don't, they can just say, "Oops, we screwed up", offer what they should have in the first place and then get the extra attention an

Re:

[Renraku]

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.

whatever else they are at Google ...

[quixote9]

they're not stupid

Buy videos from google?

[moracity]

Who's been doing this and why? I've never even heard of it.

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

[sprior]

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

[RobertLTux]

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 months)

Definitely not evil yet

[NMerriam]

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!

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

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.

Re:

[Umuri]

Except they didn't?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but google did not SELL videos. It rented them. Are you going to say that OMFG, blockbuster is doing it wrong, why won't they let us keep the videos, we already paid for it!
Sorry, just seems a little bland argument to me. Again, if i'm wrong please say so.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but google did not SELL videos. It rented them.

Well thats just semantics. Google did rent videos for limited amounts of time, but you could also choose to get a kind of lifetime rental where you pay once and then get to watch the video whenever you want, presumably until you die. People who did that are the ones that are mad now.

However since Google is now refunding the money they paid, I dont see it as a big deal anymore.

Re:

[Firehed]

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 content publisher and get their permission to remove the copy protection rather than just pull the license and give a refund, which is logistically insane.

Re:

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

Unfortunately, the DMCA makes that illegal.

I'm not saying that Google need to break the law. But it's their responsibility to fulfil their commitment to a final sale. Even if it means going to the content providers and offering to compensate THEM for the removal of the DRM. THAT'S who Google should be trying to run a compensation deal with. And whatever that costs, Google needs to swallow it. If the content providers agree, the DMCA no longer applies. So Google is pulling a switch on entirely the wrong people. I not only believe that Google should

Re:

[mike2R]

Would it make it any better if they offered their customers a pony?

For fucks sake, these things happen. They've come up with the cash to compensate people - finally (I quite agree the original Google Checkout thing was unacceptable, but they've compensated people for messing them around with that too).

Look, this is as good as it gets for consumer customer service. If you expect more you're just going to spend most of your life angry, dissapointed, and with people avoiding you because you winge about

Re:

[mike2R]

Ok, but given that the wrong happened it has (now) been sorted out as well as any reasonable person could ask for.

What they've done isn't a crime (unlike stealing physical products), so monetary compensation is all you're every going to get, and twice what you paid is, lets face it, very very good - although marred somewhat by the fact that they tried to pull that Checkout credit stunt first.

Re:

[mike2R]

Well it's not a crime in the sense of not being against criminal law, therefore any recompense you could seek through the courts would be monetary.

I'm not saying it's Google's finest hour, but really I think in the real world these things happen, all you can do in that instance is apologise and try and make it right. Which they've done.

Re:

[mike2R]

Did Google grant themselves this right in the Terms of Service?

If they didn't their lawyers are complete muppets, which seems unlikely.

If people had downloaded the video ...

[aeschenkarnos]

... then it would be no issue whatsoever. Pay. Download. Watch. No problems.

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

[Afecks]

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?

Re:

[Durrok]

You should have known what you were getting into in the first place. If you didn't then consider this a lesson in "Why DRM is bad" and move on. It's akin to getting pissed at a hot stove when it burns you... wait that's not a car analogy. Never mind.

Re:

[Afecks]

So in other words, I shouldn't have been wearing a skirt if I didn't want to get raped.

Re:

[Ohreally_factor]

No, it's more like you shouldn't pay a rapist to rape you if you don't want to get raped.

Want to have permanent access to something? Maybe a stream isn't the your best solution, and you should take your business elsewhere. How in the hell you can equate that to rape is beyond me.

Re:

[Afecks]

You didn't read my original comment where I clearly state that I purchased videos from Google that weren't available anywhere else. Kind of hard to take your business someplace else when that someplace else doesn't even exist. That's ok, I wouldn't want you to bother to read what I actually wrote. It's much more insightful to post knee-jerk comments just to show how much smarter you are than me for not buying DRM'd movies.

Also, my previous comment was sarcastic, meant to highlight the absurdity in blaming t

Re:

[Ohreally_factor]

You really want to get into it, don't you?

You feel that you're a victim? That Google victimized you? Holy shit, if only science could create a violin small enough to play "My heart bleeds for you". Man, I don't know if you've heard of it, but there's this thing called perspective, and you really, really need to get some. It doesn't really matter whether or not the products weren't available anywhere else. You either knew what the quality of the goods were, in which case it's awfully hard to consider you a v

Re:

[Afecks]

Victim - an unfortunate person who suffers from some adverse circumstance

Such a simple word shouldn't be too complex for you.

Google had two types of videos, download-to-rent and download-to-own. Excuse me for being so naive that I took "own" to mean literally when, in reality, they were rentals of different durations. No, clearly that's not misleading at all.

As for the rest of your drivel. What energy? I'm sitting here at my PC, typing to some egotistical person on Slashdot. Maybe that's a full day's load for you but that doesn't equate to much energy on my part. I know you're

Re:

[Zephyr14z]

Fucking right I would care if they slapped some money on the table as they were leaving. Especially double what I payed to begin with. Then I could take double my original business elsewhere.

Re:

[dj245]

Have you read the DVD liscensing agreement in the small print? You didn't buy a DVD disc, you bought the liscence to watch it privately for home use. "Own the DVD Today!" is a very misleading, if not completely false advertisement.

All that, and they won't replace a disk if you break it, even though you bought a liscence to watch a movie, not a disk.

Email sent to customers

[ViennaSt]

We recently emailed you to let you know that Google is ending the
Google Video download to own/rent (DTO/DTR) program, and that
you'd receive a Google Checkout bonus equal to or greater than the
total amount of your Google Video purchases.

Since then, we've received feedback from people dissatisfied with
our approach to phase out the Google Video download to own/rent
program, so we've decided to take additional steps to address
these concerns:

1. We will fully refund your credit card for the total amount

A new trend

[otter42]

While Google's response to the problem was magnanimous and exemplary, what's worrying here is that at least part of the Google culture has gone from one of "does this make sense?" to "will our customers complain too much?"

Anyone with half a brain could have told them that, no matter their good intentions, it could never have worked without making people upset. Of course, seen from their point of view, giving Google Checkout credit to people who probably weren't watching the films anymore anyway was probably

Re:

[nanojath]

Google motto 1999: Don't be evil

Google motto 2007: Our bad

Re:

[clamothe]

Obviously it's good PR. This doesn't have to mean that they did it for the good PR rather than for their customers, as you seem to be suggesting.

Re:

[catbutt]

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 company that is non-evil, or if they just do it because they think it is the right thing to do?

Seriously, what difference does it make? If you dig deep enough, it's pretty hard to find anything anyone has ever done that you can't assign a selfish motive

Re:

[Zashi]

Wow, /. readers read way too much into stuff.

There have been lots of stories of google doing... questionable things lately and this is refreshing and welcome, reminiscent of the good ol' google days.

Re:

[catbutt]

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.

Re:

[ksd1337]

That was probably one of the best erotic literature I have read in a while.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too. First time I've jacked off while reading slashdot. First time this week, at least.