[clug] The 1st Internet Tax is here.

[Michael Still]

Robert Edwards wrote:
> Michael Still wrote:
>> Daniel Pittman wrote:
>>
>>> If you /must/ store credit card details then a dedicated system used
>>> only for payments is the sanest approach, and should cost you less than
>>> ten thousand dollars all told, including setup and integration.
>>
>> With encryption, a separate firewall, good access control and logging, 
>> and a locked cage in a secure data center.
>>
>> This is one of the reasons I don't buy with credit cards from small 
>> online vendors by the way. I wouldn't be surprised to find that 99% do 
>> it wrong.
> 
> I'd like to see a whole nother online payment paradigm made available.
> 
> What I would like to be able to do is to rock up to a local eg.
> convenience store and buy a token (think of a phonecard or similar)
> with cash or whatever which I can then use to purchase stuff off of
> the Internet, without giving up my (personal, identity-revealing)
> credit card details which can be used to track my eg. purchasing
> patterns etc.

In the US you can buy prepaid credit cards, which are a lot like this. 
Note that you still need to provide ID to the credit card company (IIRC).

> Paypal sort of goes some of the way, but I still need to get credit
> into it somehow and it again uses a single identity for all purchases.
> 
> I suspect that credit card purchasing online is a "good-thing" as far
> as law-enforcement may be concerned, but there are clear civil-liberty
> issues involved.
> 
> Maybe Google can come up with something?

Well, Google Checkout is pretty close. Only Google has your credit card 
details, and you don't need to even give the vendor your email address 
(Google will proxy that traffic and stop it if you wish).

Mikal