Immortal Defense, "the 'topping-out' of the tower defense genre," is temporarily available for whatever you care to pay.
posted by Iridic on Dec 24, 2009 - 23 comments

It's more of a "how are you paying?" than "what are you doing?" kind of business. Square Inc. is a new startup cofounded by Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Jim McKelvey which will allow businesses and individuals to take credit card payments from customers anywhere. Receipts and confirmations are paperless and get sent to buyers via text message or email. While the media believes it is set to shake up the credit card processing industry, it has also committed to donate a penny on every transaction a merchant takes to a cause of their choice. Square is starting business with $10 million in venture capital funding and is of course tweeting the process; you can see it in action here or try it at Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco.
posted by cgomez on Dec 1, 2009 - 65 comments

The Seasteading Institute (previously) is the brain-child of former Google engineer Patri Friedman , and seeks to set up independent governments in international waters. In April 2009, the institute received $500,000 of seed funding from PayPal founder Peter Thiel. After reading it's revised manifesto, Brad Reed (of Sadly, No) remains unimpressed. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk on May 31, 2009 - 98 comments

SpaceX's fourth flight was successful. Scaled Composites' X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne made the first privately funded hop into space. SpaceX just took the next big step and inserted a dummy payload into orbit. Next, they will launch the much larger Falcon 9 and later test out the human-carrying Dragon. CEO Elon Musk also enjoys dabbling in banking and exotic electric cars.
posted by b1tr0t on Sep 28, 2008 - 45 comments

Google Checkout is officially unveiled today; the latest service to join the Google arsenal in their race to control the entire www. It has been suggested in the news that the Google payment service was also a big factor in the recent Yahoo and eBay partnership, since eBay's Paypal service might finally have some real competition. More info on the service here.
posted by p3t3 on Jun 29, 2006 - 32 comments

Remember when PayPal was just for beaming money from one Palm to another? NYTimes covers Y Combinator, and points out one of their projects, TextPayMe.com, which is trying to repeat PayPal's feat but on your cell phone with text messages. For those interested: Wired coverage from last week.
posted by pwb503 on Feb 21, 2006 - 27 comments

Click Here You Idiot!
posted by salmacis on Jan 5, 2006 - 47 comments

SomethingAwful.com , which has been running on fumes since Thursday because they're hosted in New Orleans, added a Paypal donation link for Katrina relief to their barebones status update site yesterday, raising more than $3,000 an hour. Paypal then froze the account for "suspicious activity," preventing over $30,000 in donations from reaching the Red Cross.
posted by MegoSteve on Sep 4, 2005 - 20 comments

Google Wallet to compete against Paypal. So, Google has my email, my search history and soon, my bank information. I'm ok with this, I guess, because I gave it to them.
posted by raaka on Jun 19, 2005 - 32 comments

Greenzap opened for business last week, with every intent of taking on PayPal for the title of online payment portal du jour. But even before the service officially launched, there was already a growing number of people hotly debating the validity of the enterprise. Will this be the next big thing, or just another lollipop party waiting for the suckers to show up?
posted by deusdiabolus on Jun 6, 2005 - 16 comments

An online psycho (or entrepreneurial genius?) says he's holding a bunny, named Toby, hostage unless charitable animal lovers donate $50,000 to his paypal account. Otherwise, he'll butcher it. So far, he's got $14,000.
posted by nospecialfx on Feb 17, 2005 - 59 comments

Not porn, just gay PayPal suddenly delists queer sites: “[H]e raised objections to PalPal’s action, saying his organization’s aim is to educate the public on ways to avoid AIDS. He said PayPal never responded to his concerns.... PayPal sent [another site owner] a reply saying the company would consider reinstating his account if he submits a statement promising to ‘remove the book covers wherein individuals are touching each other’ ”
posted by joeclark on Oct 23, 2004 - 25 comments

Redemption? At the risk of linking to another Something Awful thread and incurring their wrath, I think it's important to point this out, especially here. In the matter of a few short days, the users over there emptied their paypal accounts to help someone in need. They raised $12,000 in four days.
posted by crunchland on Jun 15, 2004 - 10 comments

Buy your porn now! In a little over two weeks, you will no longer be able to purchase anything in Ebay's mature categories, or many other forms of online adult amusement, using PayPal. New rules being implemented and enforced by PayPal follow [with a bit of coercion, some claim ] new rules laid down by Visa late last year making it significantly more difficult to sell porn online if you want to accept Visa cards. While it's unclear why exactly PayPal and Ebay are doing this, PayPal and Visa's corner on the online payment market is going to lead to some sort of change in the business of online porn. [all links except "exactly" SFW]
posted by jessamyn on May 28, 2003 - 17 comments

PayPal charged with breaking Patriot Act. Anybody care to explain what does terrorism have to do with glambing? (No, it is not a rescued April fool's joke ...)
posted by magullo on Apr 11, 2003 - 10 comments

Has PayPal's acceptable use policy become much broader recently? I just received notice of changes to PayPal's acceptable use policy. I was surprised at the number of things that they have restrictions on. One in particular seemed like the kiss of death: No porn for you unless it's from eBay's Mature section. Won't somebody think of the cam girls? With many banks now offering some sort of internet check-writing facility is PayPal really even a valid business model anymore outside of eBay?
posted by substrate on Mar 14, 2003 - 10 comments

Yes to sex, no to dissent? The Register reports that PayPal has suddenly closed the account of the stridently skeptical (some say overly conspiratorial, but let's leave that tired debate aside) WhatReallyHappened.com. Here's WRH's response, along with reader comments and anti-PayPal links. Here's a translated Quebec story. "Can one conclude from it that PayPal has leaning for the sex?"
posted by mediareport on Mar 13, 2003 - 30 comments

eBayPal. Say, if PayPal doesn't deliver its stock, will they get negative feedback? (See also The Reg coverage.)
posted by darukaru on Jul 8, 2002 - 16 comments

Ask and you shall receive. Move over, Amazon Honor System! Now you can sign up for a one-click service that lets visitors to your Web site donate something you'll really appreciate: oral sex. Best of all, they don't keep a percentage of your donations like Amazon and PayPal do.
posted by kindall on Feb 9, 2002 - 6 comments

PayPalWarning.com serves to caution potential customers and those using PayPal for auctions or business of PayPal's faults. From their dicey terms of service to their unhelpful/unavailable tech support, to story after story of PayPal's wrongdoing, to a whole list of links to other people having PayPal problems.
posted by mathowie on Dec 10, 2001 - 28 comments

c2it to be free; PayPal raising fees. Will this spell the end of PayPal? Free c2it from Citibank can be used the same way the "old" PayPal could (for friends and roommates to settle up bills) as well cutting deeply into PayPal's core on-line auction settlement business (well over half its revenue), already under attack by eBay's Billpoint.
posted by MattD on Nov 16, 2001 - 8 comments

Is Paypal making money? I read this on thier main Red Cross Page: PayPal will donate 100% of the proceeds to the National Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross.

All donations are tax deductible. Include your address (for a tax receipt) in the "Shipping Address" field when making your donation.

PayPal will realize no profits from money donated to this fund.

Yet, I play Utopia and they have a donation account setup through paypal which states this: All funds raised through this campaign -- minus a commission of $0.30+2.9% which PayPal takes on all payments -- will be forwarded directly to the Red Cross.

So does Paypal give 100% of donations directly donated to its page, and take a commission on accounts set up through secondary pages such as Amazon? If so, with almost $6 Million dollars, that is almost $2 Million dollars!!! (if I did my math right, please correct me if I am wrong.)
posted by da5id on Sep 17, 2001 - 14 comments

Other not-so-free-anymore things Apropos of the NetZero not-so-zero-anymore change, PayPal has essentially made its system unusable for the purpose that first sucked us in -- a fast, convenient way for friends to share rent, settle up bills for dinners and weekend getaways (more inside).
posted by MattD on Dec 26, 2000 - 16 comments

X.com ceases banking operations. Of course, all real gamers know that this is just a cover story for the real mission of XCOM -- fighting the exterrestrial invasion which has been going on in secret for the last fifteen years.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Nov 9, 2000 - 6 comments

Yahoo now has a PayPal-style service. What is Yahoo not doing these days? And how does this relate to them being a media company? They've got the directory, bill payment, auctions, bookmarks, and a music player, among their many offerings. It seems like they've copied many major internet applications and put them in one place. Are they the "Microsoft" of the web in terms of innovation?
posted by mathowie on Aug 30, 2000 - 14 comments