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Patent Uncovered:: Could G-Pay be the GPhone App?  (View post)

Search-Engines-Web.com [PersonRank 10]

Monday, September 3, 2007
16 years ago10,880 views

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/02/could-gpay-be-googles-killer-phone-app/

Patent from Aug 30th suggest a Google Phone Payment System

Zim [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

It's the end of the world! It's the end of the world!
(Google is trying to own everything!)

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[Moved from "Gpay" – Tony]

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/02/could-gpay-be-googles-killer-phone-app/

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[... i've searched for gpay, but not for g-pay...]

hebbet [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

http://www.macwelt.de/news/578122/index.html (site is German)
Gpay was renamed to Checkout one year ago

Above 5 comments were made in the forum before this was blogged,

Alan Hope [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

The city of Antwerp already allows people to pay for parking by SMS. And from this Thursday 6 September the cities of Antwerp and Ghent will make it possible for bus and tram passengers to pay by SMS. You send a message to a certain number, and the cost of the call is your fare. You get an SMS back, which is your ticket. It's time-stamped, so valid for one hour. You pay either through your payment plan or your pay and go credit. Seems very similar to me.

newssweb [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Zim, it can't be the end of the world. NO! I beg to differ.

We as consumers are not so ignorant. We are the one deciding on the success of a company. It's all about innovation and how technology eases our way in mediating with our daily life though technology. If google can ease that, then thanks lord. By saying
   It's the end of the world! It's the end of the world!
(Google is trying to own everything!)

you are propulsing a wrong discourse. As a surfer and searcher, and lots of my contemporaries like me, we are more intelligent doted with a faculty to think and decide what is good for us. We as users also embrace or reject technology. Remind yourself you the uses and gratifications of technology since the past 40 years!

rajat bhatla [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I've heard of financial transaction over sms before, but how secure is it?
Firstly, is there a concept of SSL/certificates for SMS?

Secondly, we dont feel as secure about our mail user id and password, as we do about our credit card, or payments through internet banking?

  

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

PayPal launched their mobile phone payment system in March 2006, and it seems to work just like the one described in Google's February 2006 patent:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/mobile/MobileSend-outside

Louis Rossouw [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I use a similar system to pay my electricity...

eMan [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Payments by SMS had been tested in the Czech Republic already ten years ago...:-)))

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

And just yesterday, the UK's five mobile companies switched on their "digital wallet" functionality called "PayForIt" according to the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6764979.stm

bwaje [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Similar experience is going on in Kenya : M-pesa (mobile-money in swahili); it gains a thousand of clients a day, and has been launched by UK provider Vodafone :
http://www.safaricom.co.ke/m-pesa/default.asp

hebbet [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

In Germany you can buy your tickets for the railway with your mobile fon

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

in austria too, and much more stuff; called "paybox"

AlchemyX [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Some offtopic but still funny:

http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/07sep/xuf010704.gif

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

funny :p

Eugene Villar [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

There's an SMS payment system already in place in the Philippines. I'd like to think that this patent would be struck down because there's tons of prior art already.

Mind that Google's patent is still in the application phase.

mrbene [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I think the differences between the systems described in these comments so far and the proposed system described in the Google patent is that the "GPay" system is a brokerage that supports multiple payment recipients, while pulling money directly from the payers account.

Most systems described to date are either premium numbers or added to the existing mobile phone bill – as opposed to being handled through a separate, regularly updated account.

Juha-Matti Laurio [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

A very nice catch from MacWelt.de, hebbet....

Search-Engines-Web.com [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070905-google-gpay-patent-reveals-plans-for-mobile-payments.html

Arstechnica has its take with an additional Diagram that illustrates how it will work

akasha [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

definitely, that is my concept paper in one of my research subjects...

RogerG [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I have to disagree with mrBene. There are multiple systems around that do exactly that – brokerage of payments to multiple recipients and drawing money from the payers account. Vodafone NZ launched this system in 2005 and since then I've seen a few third party services. The VFNZ systems went into the market and then stalled, but it certainly predates GPay. Even when Voda did it, it wasn't considered worthy of a patent. Most patents have to pass the test of "obviousness" which service would fail. It takes processes which are common on th internet and maps them onto mobile, at a time when transformation from web to mobile is very common.

Sorry to say it, but shows how far behind the US market is, when ideas like this are considered novel. You only have look outside their shores to Asia, Europe and even Australasia to see this stuff has been in action for years.

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