Google to Offer Micropayment Platform for Newspapers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 10, 2009 - 11:01am.

Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) plans to make a micropayment platform available to newspapers and other online properties within the next year, according to Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab.

The company outlined its plans in a response to a query from the Newspaper Association for America (NAA), posted online by the Nieman Lab.

"While currently in the early planning stages, micropayments will be a payment vehicle available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year," the company wrote to the NAA.

"The idea is to allow viable payments of a penny to several dollars by aggregating purchases across merchants and over time.

"Google will mitigate the risk of non-payment by assigning credit limits based on past purchasing behavior and having credit card instruments on file for those with higher credit limits and using our proprietary risk engines to track abuse or fraud."

http://snipurl.com/rqn3k (Nieman Lab)