PayPal Announces Some Pricing Changes

Today, PayPal announced that it is making some changes to its user agreements and pricing. The changes are specifically related to refunds, chargebacks, and Amex payments.

PayPal senior director of SMB Merchant Services Eddie Davis outlines the following changes:

1. Refund Prices – Starting August 10, PayPal will retain the transaction fee (typically $.30) when a seller issues a refund (U.S. and Canada merchants).
   
   
2. Chargeback Prices – Starting August 24, we’ll be increasing chargeback costs from $10 to the typical industry rate of $20 (U.S. merchants only, eBay merchants enrolled in the PayPal Preferred program are exempt).
3. American Express Card Acceptance – On July 13, PayPal and American Express will enter into a new card processing arrangement that requires merchants to establish a direct contractual relationship with American Express. You’ll need to accept a new agreement with American Express if you want to continue to accept American Express cards directly through Website Payments Pro and Virtual Terminal. PayPal will continue to service American Express transactions. As part of this new agreement, the fees we charge for American Express payments will change to be on par with their typical industry rates. You’ll also need to make sure that you comply with other terms in the agreement with American Express. As part of this new agreement, American Express pricing will change to be on par with their typical industry rates. You’ll also need to make sure that you comply with other terms in the agreement with American Express. This only applies to taking American Express credit cards directly. There’s no change if a consumer chooses to pay with PayPal, no matter how the account is funded

Davis notes that standard transaction fees for PayPal payments and direct credit card payments for Visa, MasterCard, and Discover will remain unchanged.

Google Named In Class Action Suit Over Street View

Google has been named in a new class action lawsuit filed by Carp Law Offices on behalf of Galaxy Internet Services and it WiFi users in Massachusetts.

The suit is focused on the collection and storage of WiFi information by Google's Street View team. The suit alleges Google had covert packet sniffing WiFi receivers to help gather data on WiFi users. The suit says the practice is in violation of both federal privacy laws and Massachusetts's new data privacy law.

Google has admitted it did collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using its Street View cars. Google says the collection of private data from WiFi networks was unintentional.




"Google had no reason to collect WiFi information, despite their rationale that they had not used the information and that the 'payload data' they collected was only network information available to anyone," said Robert Carp of Carp Law Offices.

"It is our client's belief and the belief of the class action members that the data they extracted was private information, and they have violated both Federal and Massachusetts state privacy laws."

The complaint asks for class action certification, and for an injunction to prevent Google from destroying any of the data that could be used for evidence in a class action trial in Federal court.

Google says it has stopped its Street View cars from collecting any WiFi network data and it also has introduced SSL encryption on its search engine.

Google Partners With Biggest Energy Monitor Manufacturer

The Google PowerMeter energy monitoring tool may be ready to go from interesting experiment to omnipresent product. Google announced today that it's entered a partnership with Current Cost, the largest global supplier of real-time displays that monitor energy usage.

Neither organization is wasting time on paperwork or small-scale tests. A post on the Official Google.org Blog explained, "Current Cost will now offer devices that are compatible with Google PowerMeter. They will also offer upgrades to existing customers so that they too can monitor their energy consumption anywhere online with our software."



The post then continued, "Devices that integrate with Google PowerMeter will first be available in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand." Plus, "E.ON, one of the UK's largest utilities, has also teamed up with Current Cost to offer its customers a Google PowerMeter compatible energy monitor as part of its free 'Energy Fit Starter Pack.'"

These developments should put Google's name in front of a lot more people on a regular basis, acting as free advertising. They constitute fantastic PR, too, considering that Google PowerMeter promises to help folks both go green and save money.

It'll be very interesting to see what sort of adoption rate the PowerMeter/Current Cost technology achieves in the weeks and months ahead.

Google Releases Playable PAC-MAN Doodle

Google has released a really cool playable doodle of PAC-MAN to celebrate the game's 30th birthday.

The Google Blog offers all the fun details. "Today, on PAC-MAN's 30th birthday, you can rediscover some of your 8-bit memories-or meet PAC-MAN for the first time-through our first-ever playable Google doodle. To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it's too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the 'Insert Coin' button or just wait for a few seconds."



Google says it has included all the original sounds and graphics of the original PAC-MAN along with an easter egg for Ms. PAC-MAN.
source : www.webpronews.com

Will Google Buzz Change the Social Media Game?

Buzz has gotten off to a great start in terms of attracting users. Google said in a blog post yesterday that over 9 million posts and comments had been created, and they were seeing over 200 posts per minute. Both numbers have likely grown since then.

In the post, Google addresses some of the privacy concerns people have been having, and improvements they're making based on user feedback.

Update: Google has uploaded the entire Google Buzz launch event. If you are interested in seeing the new product unveiled, you can watch it below:



Article starts: Google held a press event to announce the most "buzzed" topic of the week - Google Buzz. This is Google's new product, which is being compared to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It is integrated with Gmail and other Google products, and appears to be one of the missing links in tying Google together as a social network, a concept we've discussed repatedly.

Editor's Note: The bulk of this article was written before the announcement was made and has been adjusted to reflect the announcement itself, after liveblogging the press event.



Google says Buzz has five key elements:

1. Auto Following
2. Rich, Fast Sharing experience...
3. Support for public and private sharing....
4. In-box integration
5. Just the good stuff...



Buzz will show a thumbnail of a YouTube video and make it easy to play in line. With photos, they will show thumbnails, but Google built a custom photo viewer, which lets you flip through pictures and see them "big and fast". If you share links, it will automatically fetch headlines and photos from the post (similar to Facebook). You can "like" and "unlike" stuff, and expand comments. It works with keyword shortcuts from Gmail.

Public/Private sharing - The post box will let you post updates publicly or privately. If it's public, it will go to your Google profile, and is indexed by Google's real-time search. You can share privately, and it will let you send to groups and custom groups.

In your in-box, you will see buzz notifications that contain real-time comments. It sits in the same in-box as your regular email, but you can move between your regular in-box and your Buzz stuff. It integrates it right into Gmail.You can also use "@" for replies like with Twitter.

While Google Buzz is presented as a Gmail feature, it goes well beyond Gmail. For one, all public updates you post will be posted to your Google profile page, (which is searchable). In addition, Google launched three new mobile products for Buzz:

1. The ability to use Buzz from www.Google.com on iPhone/Android
2. Brand new app at buzz.google.com
3. Maps Update for Nokia Symbian/ Android.

Mobile could be one of the biggest keys to the success of this product. Google says Google.com is the world's most popular mobile home page, and Buzz can be accessed from there on iPhone and Android devices. Android's popularity is growing quickly too.



Buzz will find your location (if you let it) and snap your updates to that location. With the Google Maps feature, you can see what people are saying based on location. You can even use voice recognition to post buzz updates by voice.