Would you use a PayPal-enabled Donation Box?

[Kayaker Magic]

I have written a script for a donation box that accepts PayPal. But a friend of mine says she would never use it, for fear that it will compromise her privacy. I made every effort to protect the privacy of donators on these PayPal transactions. The donation box keeps no records of the transactions. I managed to get PayPal to suppress the sending of your shipping address. But the email address of your PayPal account is always available to the person who receives the donation. But consider this: Although the recipient can get a list of email addresses from PayPal, there is no way to connect each email with the corresponding avatar in-world.

In case that is unacceptable to some people, the box also accepts donations in KC's. (Right-click-Pay to bring up the normal money payment dialog). Those donations are logged in transaction records, but don't connect to an email in RL.

There is also a privacy issue for performers as well: You have to use your email address to receive donations, and that is logged in the transaction records of the donators at PayPal.

The process of donating is a little involved: 1) Left-Click on the box to bring up a dialog. 2) Click on a donation amount button, like USD1.00 for one dollar. 3) Open your Nearby Chat window and click on the PayPal URL link that appears there. (This is like the way a group joiner script works). 4) The normal PayPal donation page will appear in your browser. Log into your PayPal account. 5) Verify the amount and press the final Donate button on the WEB page. Does this sound too complicated to use?

So I'd be interested to hear what everyone thinks: Would you use such a donation box?

I'm also writing a vending machine that takes PayPal. It has more privacy issues. It DOES record each transaction in a database. (For keeping track of updates). So it would be possible to look back and forth between that database and my PayPal page and make connections between avatar names and email addresses. (I promise I have no interest in doing that!) Would you buy from a vending machine with this possibility? Obviously Google and Amazon and all the rest are mining our data to make connections like that all the time ...

[Constance Peregrine]

My personal take on such things, looking at it from a historical viewpoint, is that people give such information to all sorts of people whom they actually have no clue what such information could be used for, might be used for, or is in fact used for [much of which is never publicly known in any case].

The historical viewpoint is knowing the days when everyone was suspicious of using ANY such information on the net [then just credit cards].

So I would not have much of a problem with such a thing, personally, and I know performers and others who just give links to their paypal to tip or to donate.

In any case, there are ways to hide such information if one wishes to look for it.

I doubt I would have a need for it, but that's not the point.

[Marstol Nitely]

I think I would use it. I would certainly be a happier user with full disclosure. So if you are as frank with the donation box as you are here, we're good.

[Selby Evans]

I would not be reluctant to use it, but would use Kitely Credit instead, because of the complexity. And because I always have the KC's

[Danko Whitfield]

Hello Kayaker,

I appreciate the intent and the effort but I would not use this gadget. I would not give RM (real money) and would only use KCs. And I would not ask for RM in this manner.

Privacy concerns and the question of spending RM inworld aside, I think there are too many steps involved. It has to be a quick one or two click process or it will not gain wide use.

I'm not sure what the answer is to this problem. I wish we had a virtual world currency that was accepted on all/most grids. We probably never will so it's going to take something like what you're working on to be the "work around."

If this is the answer and becomes widely accepted, then I'll probably join the crowd. It's just an area where I'm not going to be an early adopter...which doesn't help you much but I thought I would offer it for your market research.

Sincerely cheering on your efforts anyway,

- Danko

[Ghaelen DLareh]

I might use this if I was making a larger donation ($10 or more... maaaaaybe $5) but for small amounts I would be frustrated by the time I got to the end of the process. It is a nice idea, though, for large donations or for other payment types.

[Freda Frostbite]

Here is my twisted answer. I would put such a tip jar out for others to use if they wanted but would not use one myself.

[Carlos Loff]

Please release it on the Market, I buy it and use it right away - Half way to business success is making it easy to get paid - please please

[Serene Jewell]

Personally I probably would not make donations via a PayPal box, but I have been toying with setting up a PayPal account that is separate from anything else and using that for virtual world activities. There are people who are comfortable with it just in this little focus group, so I'd say go for it!

I was also thinking that there should be a way to link a donation box to a wishlist on Kitely marketplace so that visitors could give in a way that supports other Kitely merchants.

Also, is seems it would be possible to have a "product" on Kitely market that is just a set donation amount. In the U.S. at grocery stores you can buy these cards at the checkout to "give $5 to a food bank" or "donate to cancer research."

[Graham Mills]

Items listed in Kitely Market need to have tangible value in and of themselves but having a branded shirt with the performer's logo/image and directing people to buy that is an acceptable way of creating revenue for performers (each shirt variation could be different and have a different price so the buyer can decide how much they want to spend on the branded item).