

Google Checkout still unfit for business: I got my money, but would you? - ahoyhere
http://www.slash7.com/articles/2009/3/28/google-checkout-still-unfit-for-business-i-got-my-money-but-would-you

======
dmaclay
Even high-profile complaints will only ever result in case by case
resolutions.

Now if someone was able to start a business where they bought the rights to
seized google checkout accounts at say 10 cents to the dollar and (now
representing sufficient monetary sums to make action worthwhile) launched
serious legal campaigns to retrieve the funds, then google would revise their
policies.

If I were owed money by google in this way, I'd happily give 90% to a third
party, just to see google get nailed (particularly if it helped force a policy
change so that no more 'little guys' were victimised).

~~~
andreyf
And how would you protect from fraudsters using your service?

~~~
jibiki
There's a famous music sharing group where you can only become a member if
someone vouches for you. If someone snitches, then they are thrown out of the
group along with the person who vouched for them. (Or something like that.)

This sort of system seems like the right idea for preventing fraudulent
sellers.

~~~
andreyf
That seems absurdly easy to game... but even if it worked, wouldn't Google or
PayPal be doing it?

------
froo
Perhaps Google should use the 200 sales and marketing staff that they are
about to lay off

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/changes-to-our-
sales-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/changes-to-our-sales-and-
marketing.html)

... and reroute them into some sort of review team so that these kinds of
errors don't happen again to what looks like lots of people over several
Google products?

That's one way to keep their "do no evil" dream alive.

Clearly you would think sales and marketing people would have the skills to
deal with people.

~~~
SingAlong
Perfect idea.

I just read news in my local newspaper that they were going to hire 360 guys
while they were laying of 200 (mostly from far-flung regions).

As per what I read on HN, the interview process is very long (around 8 months
I read). So instead of spending another 8 months hiring those 360 guys, they
should instead transfer those 200 to some kinda special service review team
directly interacting with customers and doing those weird tests they often do
for color shades (just pick random people and ask whats kinda painful to use
their service).

P.S: It would be a lot better if they also had a 'human' review team to review
banned accounts. This would eliminate the errors made by the algorithms. Since
the industry standard for fraud is just around 1.5% the review team should be
able to handle it easily.

------
indiejade
OP said:

 _"How much business did I lose?

I have no idea how many potential customers tried to buy our JavaScript
Performance ebook through Google Checkout and saw a message that our account
was disabled."_

The irony of this whole issue is the complaint is resultant from the site
attempting to sell an _eBook on JavaScript_.

What possibly happened is that this particular "technical error" was resultant
from some kind of conflict between the eBook's syntactically sketchy
JavaScript references (perhaps there are code examples within the eBook) and
the way that Google Checkout wants to handle JavaScript.

I would think somebody touting and attempting to _sell_ the "performance"
virtues of JavaScript would also be aware of the potential evil that
JavaScript can do.

 _"Don't get me wrong: I don't hate Google or people inside Google . . .
rather, the way Google's abstract, corporate algorithms have treated me."_

It's probably a very good thing that this "technical error" was indeed
preemptively caught by the "abstract, corporate algorithm."

After all, JavaScript _can_ be evil.

I would say. . . score one for Google Checkout. Sometimes better safe than
sorry.

~~~
ahoyhere
You make a very bad conspiracy theorist. Or comedian.

The language isn't slow, implementations of it are. Regardless, you can still
maximize the performance of something slow, even if that local maximum is not
extremely fast in the absolute sense.

We cover the whole range of techniques, from better architecture, DOM
tweaking, and the maximization of specific bits of code.

The contents of the book never touch Google Checkout, even in their zipped
form.

I wasn't aware publically boasting of ignorance was cool after junior high.

~~~
indiejade
I never said the language was slow. I said it _can_ be used to do evil things.
Your translation was that Google is somehow "evil" for not implicitly allowing
your profit-making motives upon potentially evil exploits. So you got
chastised by some security check for a technical error. Technical errors
happen all the time. Get over it.

BTW where, exactly, in this eBook do you do you cover security issues related
to JavaScript?

 _The contents of the book never touch Google Checkout_

Specifically, where do you cover what "touching" means, in a network's mind?

.

See: <http://neil.fraser.name/news/2005/07/16/>

Also, this: <http://message.worldbank.org/isp_403.html>

(Part-time comedian, part time FBI agent)

~~~
ahoyhere
Um?

How do you think that the topic of the book I'm selling and the Google
Checkout saga correlate at all?

I'm really curious, because there's not even the tiniest link in the chain
between the two totally disparate and unrelated things.

I didn't get "chastised" by a "security check."

They closed my account, disrupted my business, and stole my money.

With no warning, communication, notice or appeal. They give no way to contact
them and they tell you the money is gone for good.

I got my account back only through this publicity campaign, which is, in my
opinion, a good example of how Google's "Don't be evil" motto has been
abandoned.

~~~
indiejade
One more thing: You're seeking "paid validation" as a writer through Google.

Welcome to the club. Want to compare AdSense revenue?

How much money do you really think you "lost" as a result of this error? How
many people do you picture were lined up to purchase _your_ book?

Can't be much. You seem to intrinsically overvalue your self-input.

True hackers hack for _free_. Anything that comes of it is icing on the cake.
Even pennies are enormously welcome. Whining loudly is lame.

You should really try to remember to keep a sense of humor when dealing with
certain types of code like JavaScript.

P.S. Thanks, Neil!

------
seldo
Essentially, the way Google Checkout can afford to be cheaper than PayPal is
by relying on their much-vaunted algorithms to take as many human beings out
of the loop as possible. That's why there's almost no way to talk to a human
being in AdSense, AdWords or Checkout: human beings are slow and expensive.

However, algorithms are not foolproof, and in the case of Checkout the desire
to never have merchants talking to real people means that when the algorithm
gets it wrong, these merchants have nobody to talk to, no phone number to
reach, nothing. It seems pretty evil, and unless Google want to raise their
rates on Checkout to match PayPal, it seems pretty unavoidable.

This is just another case of You Get What You Pay For, except in this case
nobody thought Google would have a shitty product.

~~~
blasdel
Google Checkout was cheaper than PayPal as a subsidy.

At the beginning of May they're eliminating the Adsense subsidy, and changing
the rates to mirror PayPal's exactly. It's over.

------
ScottWhigham
It's unfortunate that you had to go through all of that just to get Google to
do the right thing. Certainly in this arena Google's image has been tarnished
(further?).

