eBay decides that Google Payments is not safe for them

or is it simply just that they own PayPal?

[amznVibe]

eBay/PayPal has now bannished using Google Payments for checkouts.

Google Payments has suddenly appeared eBay/PayPal's list for un-safe methods for payments
since they determined it "does not have a substancial track record".
[pages.ebay.com...]

eBay is banning sellers from requesting payment through Google Checkout. The online auction giant updated its Safe Payments policy this week to add Google's new payment service, Google Checkout to its list of online payment methods not permitted on eBay.

eBay's Safe Payments policy states that a payment service must have a "substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services."

Google's spokesperson said yesterday, "Google Checkout is not a beta product. Google has a long history in billing and payments for AdWords and for premium services, such as Google Video."

- Auction Bytes

Granted eBay/PayPal can do (almost) whatever they'd like but I'd like to be the first to welcome them to the real world of competition and possibly the declining years of their business.

[edited by: tedster at 1:26 am (utc) on July 7, 2006]
[edit reason] add attribution for the quote [/edit]

[tootalldave]

You can imagine the amount of business that Google will take away from Paypal/Ebay.

Google has a lot of land mines to overcome, I hope they make it as a third party processor.
There is a lot of fraud out there, but as Google
said

"Google Checkout is not a beta product. Google has a long history in billing and payments for AdWords and for premium services, such as Google Video."

My past experiences with PayPal have been good and bad as I'm sure they will be with Google.

I like Googles structure, but I do have a lot of respect for Ebays' mighty acomplishments!

I would say that Ebay has made a very wize business move at this point.

It's your move Google...

[Demaestro]

I don't mind this move by them so much, but I wish they wouldn't treat us like morons and say that it is due to the fact that Google has no substancial track record of relaible payment transactions.

They should just say they won't allow it. The reason I think is obvious as they own PayPal and Google is now a direct competetor. There is no shame in self promotion, but there is in trying to pass it off with some lame reason.

Try to get a Coke at Taco Bell, they don't give some crap reason why there is only Pepsi. They own Pepsi, or vice versa but still.... They aren't trying to tell us it is worse for us and they are protecting us from evil coke.

Don't treat us like idiots, we know the real reason for this move, them acting like there is another reason and treating us like we are too dumb to know the real reason is insulting to me.

[kevinpate]

> treating us like we are too dumb to know
> the real reason is insulting to me.

to you, sure, but to the masses who use e-bay? :)

[Lovejoy]

Hi all,

Just where is the Google Payment link? I can't find where it mentions how to set it up so Google accepts payment for the vendors.

[vidpro2]

<quote>eBay is banning sellers from requesting payment through Google Checkout. The online auction giant updated its Safe Payments policy this week to add Google's new payment service, Google Checkout to its list of online payment methods not permitted on eBay.
eBay's Safe Payments policy states that a payment service must have a "substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services."

Google's spokesperson said yesterday, "Google Checkout is not a beta product. Google has a long history in billing and payments for AdWords and for premium services, such as Google Video."
</quote>

What is the source for this information?

[jtara]

Google Checkout is not a beta product.

That's a first.

Why is it that Google has hidden behind the "beta" tag for an extended period on every other new offering besides this one?

[woop01]

I'd pay to watch the fireworks if Google now put out a statement that they are eliminating Ebay from their indexes and Adwords listings due to the spammy nature of Ebay listings.

[blaze]

Next: not allowed to use paypal alongside google checkout on a website?

[rohitj]

Good for ebay. With identity theft rampant all over the place, Google needs to prove that they can handle secure financial data. Quite frankly I don't think their adwords billing infrastructure is proof enough that they're capable of moving into the same type of turf as PayPal--which has something like 60 million accounts and a lot of experience handling fraud and identity theft. You're no longer talking about billing just tech-savvy webmasters and small businesses but thousands of others who may have very limited experience using computers.

As for removing eBay from the index or adwords, that's just not going to happen. It'd ruin all credibility they have of trying to keep the index unbiased and protected from business interests. Would be just another bad PR campaign amid China and pagerank lawsuits. And it'd be a fair assumption to say that their adwords arrangements are sealed by some tight contracts, specifying when ads can be pulled and when they cannot.

[edited by: rohitj at 7:50 pm (utc) on July 6, 2006]

[rstein68]

Hmm, I smell another anti-trust suit.

[frozenpeas]

"substantial historical track record"

Probably Ebay asked to see records of its transactions as proof and Google turned them down.
This would seem to fit in with Google's secretive way of operating.
Or Ebay emailed them and got no reply apart from the standard "Thank you for contacting Google" :)

[hannamyluv]

That's odd b/c I saw an ebay adwords ad with the little cart icon just yesterday.

[herb]

"PayPal disclosed in SEC filings that Louisiana had asked the company to stop offering its service to state residents until it gets a license to do business there. PayPal said it has a license to transmit money only in Oregon and West Virginia and is applying for similar licenses in 14 other states, including its home state of California."

CNET Networks [news.com.com]
February 15, 2002 the day after its IPO.
Wasn't EBay accepting payments at that time?

[edited by: herb at 7:59 pm (utc) on July 6, 2006]

[woop01]

rohitj, I know Google won't remove Ebay from their index, I was being sarcastic.

[creepychris]

Haha,
I smell an anti-trust lawsuit too. It's classic. It's too bad because Ebay could have let Google go ahead and make their typical beta errors and then present the court with a more convincing case to ban them based on a faulty track record.

[Demaestro]

rohitj.... you say good for Ebay for keeping what they are claiming could be an inscure payment method from being used in order to protect their clients, but let me ask you this...

In X amount of time, if Google payment continues to work properly and has a "proven track record", do you feel Ebay will then go ahead and allow Google payments in Ebay transactions?

I don't think they will, perhaps that is the skeptic in me but if the reason they gave for this move is true then we should see them make G payments allowable in some amount of time as long as there is no big scandel with G payments. I don't think that will happen, I think they will continue to disallow G payments as a method for Ebay transactions.

Again why not just shamelessly promote your payment service, there is nothing wrong with cutting out the competition, just don't try to tell me they aren't secure, G does how much in adsense payments a month? They had 1 currency convertion problem that I remeber which was all corrected in due time. I just don't see calling Google "unproven" when it comes to dealing with payments to be an accruate statement.

Kevin... you are right I do know the difference and perhaps the masses don't.... but why tell the masses that G payments isn't good enough for them, clearly it is, especailly when you compare it to other payment gateways that are used on Ebay. I don't know anyone who hasn't had some issue with PayPal.

I just feel it is one thing to remove a competetor from getting some of your action but it is quite another to claim the reason is anything else then what it is. I think putting G payments on a list of untrusted payment gateways is not right.

I mean search.Google.com deosn't return things from search.msn.com but they don't tell people the reason is MSN is worse, the reason is obvious, they are competetors.

[Sekka]

eBay keeping their market. Nothing else.

[gibbergibber]

Surely this is a potential anti-trust crime?

Ebay clearly has a stranglehold over online auctions, there's not really any other options for most people that have anything like the same reach.

Imagine if Microsoft explicitly banned users from using Firefox in its Windows TOS, that would land them in court straight away.

--There is no shame in self promotion,--

There is if you're abusing a monopoly. It's against the law for very practical reasons.

[Demaestro]

--There is no shame in self promotion,--

There is if you're abusing a monopoly. It's against the law for very practical reasons.

An excellent point but do you really feel that Ebay has a monopoly? Yes it is the standard place for online auctions, but KFC is the standard for take out fried chicken and they don't have coke for the same reasons.

Your point is valid though I just am not sure I would go so far as to call Ebay a monopoly, there are so many online aucttion sites popping up now that Ebay doesn't even have top search results for "online auction" when I search in Google.

[balam]

> I smell an anti-trust lawsuit (too.)

Well, someone would have to, wouldn't they? Just open your window, and it will go away...

Perhaps Google could convince the dozen or so Ebay-acceptable payment processors to join such a suit?

Adwords, Adsense, all fine and dandy. But how much experience does Google have handling payments for my hand-woven, fuzzy blue widgets that I sell to little old ladies on the other side of the planet? Are we at the two week point yet?

[Kerrin]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Google buy out an existing auction site (or set up their own) at some point to push Google Payments.

[trinorthlighting]

Yea, they will call it G-Bay

I can not wait till google gives ebay/paypal competition.

[TypicalSurfer]

eBay's Safe Payments policy states that a payment service must have a "substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services."

I wonder how long they have to stay in the sandbox?

[shri]

Atleast they did not come up with something like "it is the side effect of two top secret factors which use to analyse payment providers that leads to the unfortunate effect of Google Payments not being able to meet our quality standards".

Two significant losses for Google ...

1) Amazon turns down google, despite an awesome honey moon which lasted several years. Lets see if they offer Google payments to zshops.

2) Ebay turns down google for payments, despite the amazing amount of traffic delivered to them .. they could have asked for adwords credits on all sales made on ebay, in addition to the credits being given to the users. Would definately have paid for a few more "Buy George Bush" on ebay ads.

[venrooy]

I would make a bet that Paypal is the next Enron. The only thing that is keeping them afloat is the Behemoth amount of funds they have tied up in frozen accounts. They settled a lawsuit several years ago for frozen accounts, and now they have more frozen accounts then they have ever had.

I follow the paypal forums on ebay fairly close, and there are at least a few posts a day about funds being frozen, that quickly get deleted after a few hours or less. And I don't know how many are deleted before I see them. You can find thousands of horror stories if you Google it.

Paypal claims they can do it because they don't have to follow banking laws, because they are not legally a bank. I just can't beleive that they've gotten away with it for this long.

Google should have no problem, as soon as the paypal house of cards colapses.

[frozenpeas]

Ebay appear to be having a management shakeup at the moment and have also ammended their payment policy to make sure that Google payments do not qualify.
Interesting that the Google service is apparently cheaper than Paypal.
I can see a high profile court case coming out of this shortly, although who is going to stand by Google.

I think I am going to invent my own currency and exchange rate...

[the_nerd]

there is nothing wrong with cutting out the competition

Of course not. But it's another proof that buying lots of companies that don't really match might get you into trouble.

Somebody mentioned Taco Bell. There might be people who prefer coke over pepsi and simply eat somewhere else.

ebay runs the risk of people heading for another auction platform (G-Bay?). And provide G with a good excuse: we didn't want this in the first place, but gazillions of customers wanted us to offer auctions that accept G-Pay.

Or take Skype: I still don't understand why ebay sank that much money into an unrelated business. Or will they amend the TOS to: "Skype-Phone numbers only".

[ms2071]

alternatively we could see Google Auctions?

[vincevincevince]

I hope that someone goes after Ebay with an army of lawyers. It's one thing to say something is unsafe, quite another to ban it.

I no longer allow you to wear white socks in my store because they do not have as long a track record as gray socks.