Google Debuts One Pass, a Micropayments System for Publishers

It's been a long time coming, Google has finally revealed One Pass, a flexible payments system for publishers. The appeal of One Pass is that it enables users to access content they pay for on any platform they choose, hassle-free, while also providing a number of ways to pay for it and taking the effort of building a payments system out of the publishers' hands.

"With Google One Pass, publishers can maintain direct relationships with their customers and give readers access to digital content across websites and mobile apps," Lee Shirani, director, business product management at Google Commerce, wrote.

"Readers who purchase from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smartphones and websites using a single sign-on with an email and password," he explained.

The big advantage of One Pass, as Google would have you believe, is its simplicity. Users will be able to pay for content in a number of ways though a platform they trust and with only a couple of clicks.

After that, using One Pass, they will be able to access that content from any computer or any device since, it's linked to their account.

"Importantly, the service helps publishers authenticate existing subscribers so that readers don’t have to re-subscribe in order to access their content on new devices," Shirani explained.

"With Google One Pass, publishers can customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see what works best for them—offering subscriptions, metered access, 'freemium' content or even single articles for sale from their websites or mobile apps," he listed some of the options available to publishers.

The payments will be powered by Google's own platform, the not so popular Google Checkout. But, unlike other options available to publishers, takes a smaller cut of just 10 percent.

The announcement comes just as Apple decided to start making money from other people's services as well by taxing any subscription service that uses the App Store with a 30 percent cut.

Google One Pass is now available for publishers in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US, but Google says it plans to move beyond these countries when it can muster up interest from other places.