Google does support donationware – just don’t call it that!

Yesterday I wrote about how I had received what was effectively a ‘cease and desist’ order from Google over the use of Google Checkout to accept payments for donationware produced by MMISoftware – see previous post.

Well, today I got a reply from Google….

The reply said:

From: Google Checkout <checkout-support@google.com>
Subject: Re: [#591727119] Google Checkout Notification
Date: 2 February 2010 05:14:32 GMT
To: nick@mmisoftware.co.uk

Hello Nick, 

Thank you for your email and for providing more 
information regarding your Google Checkout merchant 
account. We have reviewed the further details and
can confirm your account is active. We also recommend
you to change the word 'donation' inorder to transact 
through Google Checkout for supporting software development.

We appreciate your patience and cooperation.

For general product or account questions, please review 
our Help Centre at

http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/?hl=en-GB.

Alternatively, please do not hesitate to contact me by
replying to this email. 


Kind regards, 

Aliuddin 
The Google Checkout Team 

Google Payment Ltd is authorised and regulated by the 
Financial Services Authority. 

Google Payment Ltd is a company registered in England 
and Wales with company number 5903713. Its registered 
address is Belgrave House, 76
Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TQ.

So, there you have it. Google does allow Google Checkout to be used with donationware as long as the word ‘donation’ is not mentioned.

Now, admittedly this may be a UK quirk, and this may not apply to the rest of the world, but judging by their “Unacceptable product categories” (see earlier post), I would guess it does.

All I need to do is remove the word ‘donation’ from the page and I can put Google Checkout back as an option…

According the the Apple Thesaurus I could use:

“gift, contribution, present, pledge, handout, grant, offering; formal benefaction; historical alms”

I think I will go with ‘contribution’.