Mozilla's next target: fixing web payments

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 7, 2013
Internet
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Internet users have a couple of options when it comes to making payments on today's Internet. They can pay by credit card, use a payment processing system like PayPal or Google Checkout, or pay the individual or company by transferring money the conventional way via bank transfers or other means.

The current system is problematic for users for several reasons. First, users can only select between a couple of payment methods that the services or shopping websites have implemented. What one site may accept may not be accepted by others, and if you happen to be in the wrong country, you may not even be able to use a particular payment option at all.

For direct payments via credit cards, the full credit card number, verification code and expiration date need to be entered and transferred to the company selling you a service or product. While you may trust Amazon or Newegg with those information, you may prefer other options when it comes to smaller stores that you may not have used or even heard about before.

Merchants on the other hand have to implement and maintain payment processing options on their websites which often involves fees that need to be paid, and limitations. The products a site is offering may disqualify it from using particular payment processors.

Payment processors that mitigate some of these issues, PayPal for instance, are not really the solution either as they do not integrate well into web services. If you select PayPal as your payment option, you are redirected to the PayPal website where you need to confirm the payment before you are taken back to the merchant's site.

Mozilla wants to fix web payments, and a first step towards that goal is the implementation of the new JavaScript API navigator.mozPay() in Firefox OS that enables web apps to accept payments. You are probably wondering how this differs from current payment options on the Internet.

The core idea here is to provide a decentralized platform for merchants and users alike to make payments "easy and secure on web devices" but still as flexible as the "checkout buttons for merchants".

navigator.mozPay() is a JavaScript API inspired by google.payments.inapp.buy() but modified for things like multiple payment providers and carrier billing. When a web app invokes navigator.mozPay() in Firefox OS, the device shows a secure window with a concise UI. After authenticating, the user can easily charge the payment to her mobile carrier bill or credit card. When completed, the app delivers the product. Repeat purchases are quick and easy.

The blog article indicates that there is still lots of work to be done. It is an experimental API for now, but Mozilla plans to work with other companies through the W3C to create a common API that supports web payments. Mozilla intends to integrate the API into Firefox for Android and the desktop Firefox versions as well.

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Comments

  1. ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
    Reply

    Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
      Reply

      Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.

    2. Leonidas Burton said on September 4, 2023 at 4:51 am
      Reply

      I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
      http://www.google.com/saved

  2. VioletMoon said on August 16, 2023 at 5:26 pm
    Reply

    @Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!

  3. Karl said on August 17, 2023 at 10:36 pm
    Reply

    @Martin

    The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
    https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/

    Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.

  4. Anonymous said on August 25, 2023 at 11:44 am
    Reply

    Omg a badge!!!
    Some tangible reward lmao.

    It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.

  5. Scroogled said on August 25, 2023 at 10:57 pm
    Reply

    With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.

    1. lollmaoeven said on August 27, 2023 at 6:24 am
      Reply

      This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)

  6. El Duderino said on August 25, 2023 at 11:14 pm
    Reply

    Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.

    And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.

  7. John G. said on August 26, 2023 at 1:29 am
    Reply

    First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[

  8. Kalmly said on August 26, 2023 at 4:42 pm
    Reply

    Yes. Please. Fix the comments.

  9. Kim Schmidt said on September 3, 2023 at 3:42 pm
    Reply

    With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.

    Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.

    The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.

    If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.

    And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.

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