SuperAwesome built a platform called Kids Web Services (KWS), a “parental consent management toolkit” that helps developers incorporate child-safe services, including advertising and monetization. KWS is GDPR compliant and has been certified through the KidSafe and other safe harbor programs. It’s used by over 300 companies including Nike, Disney, Hasbro and Lego, according to the company’s About page.

To use the platform, parents must provide identification and give a child permission to use the service. The tech could work with any of Epic’s games, including Fortnite, but Epic told VentureBeat that its main goal is to enable SuperAwesome’s platform for developers that use the Unreal game engine.

On top of that, the two companies plan to build a wide range of child-friendly services. “The internet was never designed for kids so we started SuperAwesome to make it as easy as possible to enable safe, privacy-driven digital experiences for children everywhere,” said SuperAwesome CEO Dylan Collins.

The next time you need to fill up your car, you might pay for your gas using your voice. Amazon, ExxonMobil and payment provider Fiserv have announced that you can pay with Alexa at some pumps. The Alexa skill was announced at CES in January, and it’s now available at more than 11,500 Exxon and Mobil stations across the US.

When you pull up to a pump, you can simply ask the voice assistant to “pay for gas” using your phone or through your car itself if you have an Alexa-enabled vehicle or Echo Auto. Alexa will confirm the station and pump number with you, then it’ll activate the pump. Payment will automatically be handled through Amazon Pay. While you might have already been using contactless payments at the pump anyway, this option could make your trip to the gas station a bit more seamless.

Google’s YouTube blog pits large publishers like News Corp against individual creators. “Under this law, big news businesses can seek access to data about viewers’ use of our products,” it wrote. “They could use [that data to] try to appear higher in rankings on YouTube, disadvantaging all other creators.” The company added that the rule would compromise user data protection.

Our response to Google’s open letter: https://t.co/s1IkWoKAVj

— ACCC (@acccgovau) August 17, 2020

Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC), said that Google’s open letter “contains misinformation” about free search and YouTube services. “Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so,” the ACCC wrote in response. “Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.”

Google is fighting similar laws in Europe, particularly in France and Spain. After France implemented a similar law, Google said it would simply remove news previews to avoid paying publishers. However, the French government ordered it to negotiate fees with publishers, essentially arguing that Google is a search monopoly and must be regulated as such.

The company believes that enabling such purchases makes advertising becomes more valuable. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that he’s quite keen on growing in-app transactions. “As payments grow across Messenger and WhatsApp, and as we’re able to roll that out in more places, I think that will only grow as a trend,” he said in a recent earnings call. 

Though Libra hasn’t quite taken off as a global cryptocurrency the way the company had hoped, the unification of all the company’s disparate payment systems under one roof makes sense. Facebook Pay is already a good example of this; simply link it with your credit card or PayPal account, and you can use it to exchange funds on Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. 

Rolling out payment systems across different countries does require getting the approval from regulators, which Marcus has had experience with during his time with Libra. Marcus told Bloomberg that it’s helpful to have this expertise in financial services regulation in his new role. “In the financial services world, it’s very different than traditional technology companies that are not regulated,” he told the outlet. 

CVS pharmacies will soon let you do touch-free payments using your PayPal or Venmo accounts by using PayPal’s QR code payment system, PayPal has announced. The system will let shoppers “securely pay for their items without needing to touch a keypad or sign a receipt,” according to PayPal.

PayPal supports various means of payment, including stored debit or credit cards, bank accounts, a PayPal balance or a PayPal credit. On Venmo (which is owned by PayPal), “customers can pay using their stored debit or credit cards, bank account, Venmo balance or Venmo rewards” without any user fees, according to PayPal.

As a regular user, there are no fees for sending money or making purchases. That’s the standard in the space. With Venmo, for instance, sending money to someone is free so long as you don’t use your credit card to do so. Additionally, WhatsApp payments build on the catalog functionality the company introduced last year. The latter allows entrepreneurs to build a mobile storefront for their business, and that’s the part of the app where WhatsApp users in Brazil can buy things. 

Facebook has been working on adding payments to WhatsApp since as far back as 2017. In 2018, the company started testing the feature in India, WhatsApp’s biggest regional market. Part of the delay in getting payments out to more users likely has to do with the fact the social media giant spent time building out backend features like Facebook Pay. Now that payments are officially a part of WhatsApp, the company says it plans to bring the feature to “everyone as we go forward.”

Samsung wants to do more with payments than offer a virtual prepaid card. The company plans to grow Samsung Pay this summer by introducing a new “experience” that includes an “innovative” debit card supported by a cash management account. Details are only slated to arrive in the “coming weeks,” but it’ll have help from the financial startup SoFi.

It’s not a surprising move for Samsung. Apple has offered a credit card since 2019, while Huawei is following suit. Google is believed to be working on a debit card of its own. If Samsung doesn’t offer some kind of payment card, it might miss out if these cards turn out to be successful.

The Libra Association’s policy and communications head Dante Disparte remained optimistic in a statement, noting that Libra’s governance and underlying tech would help the platform “remain resilient.”

This isn’t a disaster for Libra, and a CoinDesk source said the Association intended to add members later in 2020. There’s a waiting list of more than 1,500 companies. However, this still isn’t a resounding vote of confidence in Libra’s success. Vodafone clearly thinks it stands a better chance going it alone, and the Association may have to work that much harder to convince other partners to stay aboard as Libra gears up for its eventual launch.

Amazon’s cloud would store the data and might even tie it to Amazon.com spending to help target ads, although we can imagine some hesitation given that people are already concerned about creepy targeting. The company may also have challenges in safeguarding payment cars. It could blacklist people caught using stolen cards, according to tipsters, but that would only help after a thief had already bought at least one item using your hard-earned money.

The system is still young, but may be making progress. Amazon is said to be working with Visa for test transactions, and is supposedly in talks with Mastercard. It might be less a question of whether or not the technology is viable as whether shoppers and stores are receptive. While handprints aren’t as revealing as faces, customers might still be reluctant to link biometric data to Amazon. Shops, meanwhile, might not want to remind customers that Amazon exists and that they could order some things online.

That’s because PayPal has snapped up Honey, the popular money-saving service, in a deal worth $4 billion. It’s PayPal’s biggest ever acquisition and will see both companies attempt to further “simplify and personalize shopping experiences for consumers,” while helping more than 30,000 retailers get those customers through their online checkouts.

Over 17 million people already use a Honey app or browser extension. Once installed, Honey tracks price changes on retailer websites but can also automatically input coupon codes when a user enters an online checkout. If no coupons are available, Honey may also offer loyalty points that can be redeemed as gift cards.

Given that PayPal already has 24 million online merchants on its books, its latest acquisition will allow it to better target and personalize experiences for consumers the minute they arrive on a website. With companies like Apple, Google and Facebook moving further into the payment space, capturing the attention of shoppers at the start of their visit rather them helping them pay for their goods at the end could give PayPal the springboard it needs to become much more than just a payment company.