Tag archive: MasterCard

Mentioned in the Wall Street Journal today, online payment provider Paypal and home improvement chain Home Depot are teaming up to bring a pilot test program of in-store Paypal payments at select Home Depot locations. While PayPal's new point-of-sale system is only being rolled out at five Home Depot locations to start, the company hopes to expand the program over the coming months. By introducing a way to pay with Paypal while inside a… Read More

Announced by the NFC Forum this week, near field communication technology got an upgrade in the form of device to device communication. Before this upgrade, the existing form of NFC utilizes an active device and a passive device, ideal for transactions like checking out in line at the grocery store. For instance, credit card information is stored on a smartphone and offered up to a store's checkout terminal when asked. The upgrade to the… Read More

Google Wallet officially launched yesterday, which is great, but the real excitement is that Visa, American Express, and Discover have all jumped onboard and will soon be added to Google Wallet, explains the search giant. They aren't available yet, but Google plans to add their cards into the app in the near future. Once support for all the major credit cards is rolling, the big problem Google needs to solve is releasing more devices that… Read More

Titled Texas Takedown Thursday, the hacking group Anonymous released three gigabytes of personal data from various Texas law enforcement agencies. The majority of the departments that Anonymous hacked into were police departments in smaller Texas cities likely due to a reduced amount of security. Private information, such as social security numbers and cell phone numbers, were included in the data dump and the emails included correspondence… Read More

Wallets are ever closer to becoming a thing of the past: AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are planning on investing over $100 million into a joint system that will let users pay for goods with their smartphones. With support from Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, the venture should help bring mobile wallets into the American mainstream. The carrier's investment will help the venture, called Isis, pull in more funding from… Read More

Google is introducing a new AdWords business credit card to some of the search engine's U.S. clients. The card will have an ongoing rate of 8.99% and no annual fee, but customers will only be able to use their credit line to buy search advertising from Google. An exclusive Reuters report points out that the new AdWords credit card “marks Google's first foray into the world of vendor financing.” This is a move that adds the search… Read More

Isis is in the business of mobile payments, and it has been working towards allowing users to use their cell phones instead of their credit card. The company first made mobile news when it partnered with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon in November 2010. Today, Isis announced that in conjunction with its existing relationship with three of the four major cell providers, it has now teamed up with all of the major credit card companies. Visa,… Read More

For a few hours yesterday Icelandic hosting company DataCell was able to accept donations to WikiLeaks via the Web, and claims it was able to process thousands of donations to WikiLeaks. However, credit card operator Visa shut it down, and as of early morning (Iceland time) the donation system was no longer operating. WikiLeaks publicized the availability of the payment processing gateway via it's Twitter account, which has almost a… Read More

At a press conference in New York moments ago, Google officially announced Google Wallet, an open near-field communications platform, and Google Offers, a deal's program that will work with the Google Wallet. Partnering with Mastercard, First Data, Sprint, Citi Bank, Google plans to let you take everything in your wallet and move it to your phone with an easy-to-use application. The goal is for all credit cards, store loyalty programs,… Read More

Samsung and Visa announced today plans to bring near field communication (NFC) payment technology to attendees of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Attendees of the Summer Olympics And Paralympic Games, which are sponsored by Samsung and Visa, will be able to use their smartphones to make purchases “before and during the Games,” according to a press release on the matter. The companies say this will “transform the payment… Read More

Near field communication is one of those up-and-coming “science fiction made real” concepts that promises to add yet another level of functionality to your smartphone in the form of a digital wallet. Essentially, you bring your NFC-equipped phone along on a shopping trip and use it as a sort of credit card. Google's Nexus S is one of the handful of phones already set up with NFC functionality and, as we learned earlier this… Read More

Authorities in the United States and Germany have launched raids against Internet Service Providers they suspect may have been involved in DDOS attacks against the likes of Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal as part of “Operation: Payback.” Germany's Federal Criminal Policy have raided ISP Host Europe after reportedly connecting an IRC server there to Tailor Made Services in Dallas, while documents posted to the Smoking Gun Web… Read More

The infamous 4Chan message board site—one of the best-known online hangouts for parts of “Anonymous” and the reputed source of rickrolling and that fake Steve Jobs heart attack rumor years ago—was largely taken offline by a distributed denial-of-service attack. So far, no one has credibly stepped forward to claim responsibility for the attack, leading to speculation about whether Anonymous and 4Chan has earned itself a… Read More

According to reports in the Internet security community and chatter from Operation: Payback participants, denial-of-service attacks mounted against the likes of PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and the Web site of Senator Joe Lieberman (among others) are being carried out using an interesting mechanism: a voluntary botnet. Internet users who are interested in using their computers (and Internet bandwidth) to support the cyber-activitst group… Read More

The cyber-battle over WikiLeaks—and its now-jailed founder Julian Assange—continues to spread. The primary Web site for credit card company MasterCard has been taken offline by an apparent denial of service attack—the site has been offline for several hours and remains inaccessible as of this writing. Various groups supporting WikiLeaks—including 4chan's “Anonymous” and Operation: PayBack—have… Read More