PayPal

Google Checkout is an online payment processor. It was originally billed as a “PayPal killer” but there are important differences. Checkout is more shopping orientated whereas PayPal is for general payments. Checkout is also available in far fewer countries at the moment. The best part is their tactics to gain users.

For a limited time Google Checkout will give you £10 off any order over £30 (excluding delivery). Not just your first order, but all your orders while they keep the offer open. This is as much to attract businesses as users (the increased custom from charging £10 less for a lot of different items).

There are still few UK sites supporting Google Checkout - the biggest I know of is Ebuyer. Since most of this blog is about technology though, I’d have to say that’s a pretty good site to get £10 off at…

I recently got an PayPal phishing email. It looked like most of the others I get but I usually visit the page anyway just to see what’s there. This time I was surprised by the address: http://smtp.funsau.saude.ms.gov.br/manual/www/paypal.com/ cgi-bin-webscr.cmd.account-login.userid-912834.link-limited-account/ websrc\_cmd=resolve\_process-run/account\_verification-process-run/ paypal\_account/limit-issues/index.htm gov.br?

A quick check on Wikipedia confirms that gov.br is reserved for Brazilian government entities and that smtp.funsau.saude.ms.gov.br is the official website of the state of Mato Grosso (site in in English). Assuming that the phishing site isn’t actually authorised by someone in the Mato Grosso government I’d hoped they’d be more careful about what people with access to their system can put up.