After much rumoring, Google's Eric Schmidt has acknowledged that Google is developing some kind of payment processing system, but that the company will not directly compete with eBay's PayPal. Instead, according to Schmidt, the service will evolve as an extension of Google's already existing features. One's thoughts naturally turn to a new way of accepting payment sfrom AdWords advertisers and Google Answers users, and a new way of paying AdSense publishers. Schmidt's remarks would seem to preclude integrating a payment service in Froogle, which seems to me a natural, if momentous, extension.
Google Confesses to Payment Service in Development
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Is this the Phantom First Data project???
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Anon
1. Oooh, scary thought: what if Google started charging premiums for some of their services? They've bought Keyhole, the one-upper of the current Google Maps, and could charge for it. That awesome feel-good space counter on Gmail? What if you had to pay to get it past a certain point? Sitemaps inclusion? A couple of bucks...
Certainly there's no evidence of this, but it has occured to others in the past. Hope not!
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Josh