Google Checkout - Exaggerated Claims

[holstein13]

If you watch the video at https://checkout.google.com/buyer/tour.html and look at other parts of the site, Google Checkout is claiming to be easier and "Safer" than other retailers.

I'll go along with easier in some cases, but is it really "safer" than Amazon.com or Dell?

I think Google is using Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) to sway customers towards their service. Ironically, this could introduce enough fear in the consumers' mind that they don't purchase from Google's advertisers.

Don't be evil? Can Google really prove that Amazon.com and Dell other top tier websites are Less safe?

[evilgreenmonkey]

Hi holstein13,

I think the point is that you'd rather give Google your details then "Bob's Knocked-Off Audio Online". Just like with PayPal, an escrow-style trusted party is a convenient and safer way to ensure that a buyer gets his goods (with card details protected) and the merchant gets their money with less fear of chargebacks. It also allows smaller merchants to accept card payments rather then getting a direct merchant account. Dell do not offer payment services to third party merchants from what I'm aware, they may even use Google Checkout if it encouraged sales or Google subsidised their immense online advertising bill.

They're not trying to create fear, this was already present with consumers from news reports on internet fraud and card companies peddling their "safer" card verification schemes (which actually are just a way of pushing liability onto either the customer or the merchant and away from themselves).



Rob

[holstein13]

I agree they are Safer than "Bob's Knocked-Off Audio Online" but that's not what they are saying. They are saying that they have a easier and safer system for payments. The implication is that they are safer than anyone. Perhaps the fear was already out there but if it wasn't, this sure brings it front and center.

On another point, Google Checkout is pretty bad at this time. They do *not* support any realtime shipping rates, no shipping API rates, no coupons, no gift certificates, nor any tax rates you have setup in your regular e-commerce platform.

I was going to implement they system for the publicity value but without realtime shipping rates, this is a non-starter.

[evilgreenmonkey]

To be honest, PayPal was the same in the early days, although I agree that they should have launched with a system at least as good as PayPal. I am also surprised that Google once again only launched the service in the US, which PayPal can testify is not the way to bring in the big bucks.

[vayapues]

Originally Posted by holstein13

I agree they are Safer than "Bob's Knocked-Off Audio Online" but that's not what they are saying. They are saying that they have a easier and safer system for payments. The implication is that they are safer than anyone. Perhaps the fear was already out there but if it wasn't, this sure brings it front and center.

On another point, Google Checkout is pretty bad at this time. They do *not* support any realtime shipping rates, no shipping API rates, no coupons, no gift certificates, nor any tax rates you have setup in your regular e-commerce platform.

I was going to implement they system for the publicity value but without realtime shipping rates, this is a non-starter.

As I read about and explore the service, I don't pick up any note of "we are better than everyone". I agree with Evilgreenmonkey, that the point they are making is that it is a safer way to do business, because your credit card info is kept private from the merchant. Lets be honest, this is more secure. In some ways it could be argued that it is in fact even more secure than Dell, because it limits end users exposure.

[holstein13]

That would be true if Dell kept the credit card numbers readily available to all employees in human readable form but do you know that Dell does this? I know we don't keep credit card numbers at my company. They are encrypted beyond human recognition. In other words, the credit card number is kept private from everyone at my company. No-one can read it. It can only be used to complete the transaction that originated it and to refund those transactions. Even if you walked in and stole our servers, you couldn't charge anyone's card.

In fact, how do you know that the employees of Google don't have more access to these numbers than do the employees at Dell? How does Google know that their systems are anymore hack proof than those at Dell? How do they know that Dell employees are less trustworthy than Google's. They don't know. It is simply arrogance on Google's behalf. For all I know, my company's website is more secure than Google's. But I would never advertise this without being sure.

Why does anyone assume that Google will be more responsible with these numbers than the merchant? 99.9% of all merchants will guard those numbers securly. There is too much to lose if they don't. Merchant's don't want to go out of business because of security breeches.

Having Google keep the world's credit cards makes them a much bigger target than the individual retailers. Look at Windows XP vs Linux. The hackers target Windows because that's where the users are.

[vayapues]

Originally Posted by holstein13

That would be true if Dell kept the credit card numbers readily available to all employees in human readable form but do you know that Dell does this? I know we don't keep credit card numbers at my company. They are encrypted beyond human recognition. In other words, the credit card number is kept private from everyone at my company. No-one can read it. It can only be used to complete the transaction that originated it and to refund those transactions. Even if you walked in and stole our servers, you couldn't charge anyone's card.

In fact, how do you know that the employees of Google don't have more access to these numbers than do the employees at Dell? How does Google know that their systems are anymore hack proof than those at Dell? How do they know that Dell employees are less trustworthy than Google's. They don't know. It is simply arrogance on Google's behalf. For all I know, my company's website is more secure than Google's. But I would never advertise this without being sure.

Why does anyone assume that Google will be more responsible with these numbers than the merchant? 99.9% of all merchants will guard those numbers securly. There is too much to lose if they don't. Merchant's don't want to go out of business because of security breeches.

Having Google keep the world's credit cards makes them a much bigger target than the individual retailers. Look at Windows XP vs Linux. The hackers target Windows because that's where the users are.

Firstly, You miss the point. It limits your exposure because you are only sharing your information with one company, instead of 15. I buy from 15 different merchants who use Google, but I only give my credit card to Google.

Also, lets remember that you are the one who used Dell as an example, not Google.

[hardball]

Firstly, You miss the point. It limits your exposure because you are only sharing your information with one company, instead of 15. I buy from 15 different merchants who use Google, but I only give my credit card to Google.

Trusting one merchant/middleman with your purchase history significantly ups the risk of being violated.

A credit card# by itself has limited value but when you throw in a purchase dossier you have some real added value, the history itself would have more value to some than the cc# and with googles legendary lack of transparency I doubt that anyone would know if you got sniffed out.

Considering the implications of the data being compromised, it would be much more risk averse to put your info on 15 different servers/merchants that wipe data from servers than in one holding tank where the data is never wiped. To believe that google is hack proof is just naive, the bigger the payday, the more resources spent targeting them, Billy Bobs bubble gum store just doesn't get that kind of attention.

No guarantees by anyone, including google.

[vayapues]

Considering the implications of the data being compromised, it would be much more risk averse to put your info on 15 different servers/merchants that wipe data from servers than in one holding tank where the data is never wiped. To believe that google is hack proof is just naive, the bigger the payday, the more resources spent targeting them, Billy Bobs bubble gum store just doesn't get that kind of attention.

Nobody is immune to hacking. However, it is much easier to hack into billy bobs bubble gum store than it is to hack into google. And if you don't think 200 credit card numbers is incentive...
Personally, I would rather have my buying history stolen, than my credit card number. In fact, if you want my buying history, here, let me post it for you.

today:
I bought fireworks
I bought doughnuts for a party

Yesterday:
I bought gas
I bought a new jogging stroller
I registered a domain name
I renewed a website subscription

Sunday:
I paid tithing to my church

Saturday:
I purchase gas for my lawn mower
I purchased tickets for an amusement park
I purchased over-priced hamburgers

Let me know if you would like to know more about my buying history.

[hardball]

Let me know if you would like to know more about my buying history.

No thanks, just send it to google.

[vayapues]

Originally Posted by hardball

No thanks, just send it to google.

Darn. I was hoping you would counter by posting your credit card #.

I do agree with you though that there are many who are concerned about there buying history. You also make a good point about google being a target for hackers.

both sides have their pluses and negatives.

[doc816]

I would not feel safe entering my google username and password at a merchant's website to purchase a product.

Being a web developer, I know how easy it can be to save that information in a database, which can then be used to purchase merchandise from other online merchants accepting "google checkout": No Credit Cards Needed

[evilgreenmonkey]

I have the same concerns with PayPal, even if eNom include a PayPal login box on their website - I don't want to use it unless I'm on the PayPal servers.

I suppose we all need to put a lid on our paranoia and feel safe in the fact that we have fraud protection. I only found out recently that hundreds of websites could have stolen my bank and card details via a simple piece of JavaScript.



Rob

[tonerman]

Originally Posted by holstein13

I was going to implement they system for the publicity value but without realtime shipping rates, this is a non-starter.

I asked our custom programming firm to implement google checkout on our ecommerce site, but after they looked at the time required and degree of difficulty integrating our site shopping system with their API we decided to forget it for now.

We have over 10,000 customers who felt safe enough using their credit card on our site without Google checkout. I think we can get a few more thousand without Google.

Personally, when I consider the way all the search scrapper sites have cheapened google PPC ads (aren't you sick of seeing "Ads by gooooogle"?") I am sure they will eventually screw this up somehow.

I'm not also not going to jump right into a Google straight-jacket they can rearrange anytime they want at great expense to me anytime soon.

Consumers have plenty of protection against credit card fraud by merchants. I wish we had as much protection from fraud by rip-off artists on our site.

Tonerman

[psurplus]

we are very excited to get google checkout as a payment option. even though our typical customer is not all to tech savvy there are some that we hope would use it to save us some processing fees. also at the same time if not sooner we are looking to get paypal as an option as well to help facilitate international orders. only problem with paypal is that we wouldn't have analytics to track sales and conversions based on payment methods. using checkout and our adwords account we could track what keywords=google checkout conversions. we spend enough on adwords that we could get almost all of our google checkout revenue processed for free. thats a big incentive compared to paying 2-3% for major credit cards. 3% on $300k is a nice handful of money that would end up in our pockets.

i also get the feeling some of us in here might not think google lives by their motto "do no evil". i'm no more concerned as a customer if google knows my purchase history- my bank does, paypal does, my girlfriend does, and the government has the ability to know in a flash if i purchase suspicious materials or a firearm. so whats the deal if google is going to use it to help serve more relevant ads to me? i'll make the stab that individuals who feel that google wants to do evil, don't have a gmail account. even if they don't have a gmail account, i'm sure they are already in jeopardy. if you have a credit card, a drivers license, a library card even you are just as susceptable to being a victim of fraud and/or purchase history.

[sheseltine]

EBay bans Google Checkout

Interesting that they changed their page from safe-payments-policy.htm to accepted-payments-policy.html. Probably so Google couldn't counter them with a "But we're safe!"

[psurplus]

I just found that article today too. Interesting that they say this because I was posting in another forum and someone asked about the cart icons displaying. Sure enough we all discovered that eBay was showing the cart icon for certain keywords. Later that day the cart icon stopped displaying for the same search queries.

[mdsouza]

HI

On another point, Google Checkout is pretty bad at this time. They do *not* support any realtime shipping rates, no shipping API rates, no coupons, no gift certificates, nor any tax rates you have setup in your regular e-commerce platform.

I know that if you are using the Ecommerce Templates shopping cart there IS support for realtime shipping rates, coupons, tax etc through Google Checkout.

[tonerman]

I wrote an earlier post on this thead titled "Thanks, but no thanks Google." I would like to expand on that a little more. The problem with implementing Google Checkout on a complex site is meshing their API with your site. For instance, the buyer is checking out with Google Checkout and changes the shipping address to a new address. Your site has to get the new address from Google checkout, query UPS (if that's how you get your shipping charges) for updated shipping charges, update the cart on your site, then send the new cart data back to Google checkout - all on the fly. Think that's easy? H---- no!

On the other hand I can take a wait and see proactive startegy by using the simple cut and paste HTML Google checkout button on every product page and telling the customer that they can buy a single product if desired with Google checkout, but not if they want that product along with 5 other items in their shopping cart.

That way I can have the little checkout symbol in my PPC ads, let buyers who only want to by one item (not unusual) checkout with Google checkout, while I avoid a major investment in implementing a full blown installation on my site of an unproven Google feature.

Tonerman

[sully]

Originally Posted by holstein13

Ironically, this could introduce enough fear in the consumers' mind that they don't purchase from Google's advertisers.

I agree. The fear factor has worked so well for US politicians that everybody is doing it. There are ISPs and other services airing TV commercials which imply or even flat-out state only they are safe to use. Visa is doing it too with its Verified by Visa merchant program. Visa probably has a little more clout in this area than Google.

Google checkout has a long way to go. Among the problems already mentioned with integrating it with your existing cart software, it doesn't handle phone orders. We have a significant percentage of shoppers who will not enter any info online and prefer to call in an order. For some reason they feel safer giving CC and other info over the phone than online. Many of them have never even heard of Google. Still, we're hoping to offer it as an option when Google brings it up to speed.