Huawei fined $10.5 million in America for 4G LTE patent infringement

• A Texas jury just found Huawei guilty of infringing on LTE technology patents with some smartphones.
• The jury found that Huawei should pay Texas company PanOptis — the owner of the patents — $10.5 million.
• Huawei has yet to respond to the ruling, but will likely appeal.

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Although Huawei smartphones barely have a presence at all in America, that didn’t stop a Texas jury from finding the Chinese company guilty of patent infringement related to 4G LTE technology, via World IP Review.

PanOptis — the Texas company that owns the LTE patents in question — claims that it tried unsuccessfully nearly a dozen times over two years to strike an agreement with Huawei over the infringements. The jury agreed that Huawei should pay $10.5 million to PanOptis for the violations.

Huawei has yet to respond to the ruling, although it’s likely that the company will appeal.

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PanOptis owns several patents that relate to LTE technology, specifically systems that work to decode picture and audio data. PanOptis claims that multiple Huawei smartphones (including the Nexus 6P, which Huawei made in a partnership with Google) used these patents without paying the requisite licensing fees. The patent numbers in question are 7,769,238; 6,604,216; 7,940,851; 8,385,284 and 8,208,569.

Curiously, the patent infringements also involved older Huawei products like the Huawei Mate 9 and Huawei P8 Lite which barely had a presence in America at all compared to the Nexus 6P.

This is not the first time Huawei has faced issues in America. Earlier this year, Huawei’s big plans of breaking into the U.S. market through a partnership with AT&T were thwarted partially by the United States government. As of now, Huawei is keeping quiet about any of its plans to attempt to break into America.

NEXT: Huawei slams Australian 5G ban, calls it ‘politically motivated’

Source: Android Zone

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Mastercard has secret contract to supply Google with offline transaction records

• A previously-unknown Mastercard-Google agreement was just exposed by Bloomberg.
• The agreement gives Google a way to connect online advertisements to offline sales in physical stores.
• Both Google and Mastercard declined to give statements specifically related to this previously-unknown contract.

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You can rest assured that when Google shows you an ad, it knows if you make an online purchase related to that ad. But what if you physically go to a store and buy a product because of an online advertisement?

Well, it turns out that Google knows about at least some of those as well. We know this now because Bloomberg just exposed a secret Mastercard-Google contract which gives the search giant access to the offline transaction records of a portion of Mastercard’s two billion customers.

While the contract itself isn’t that surprising, the fact that both Google and Mastercard kept the agreement a secret from the public is a little concerning.

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According to three anonymous people who worked directly on the deal, Google and Mastercard negotiated the contract over the span of about four years. Although an exact amount wasn’t disclosed, it’s alleged that Google paid Mastercard millions of dollars for the customer data. The two companies also discussed sharing profits from ad revenue related to the data, although Google denied this was the case.

Google did make a statement on the security of the advertising tool related to the contract, but neglected to directly discuss the Mastercard partnership:

“Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users’ personally identifiable information. We do not have access to any personal information from our partners’ credit and debit cards, nor do we share any personal information with our partners.”

The encryption technology Google is referencing enables the tracking of data and connecting it to a user’s profile, but then sharing that data anonymously with advertisers and Google. In other words, it goes like this:

1. Online shopper views and clicks an ad for a Samsung smartphone. The shopper doesn’t buy anything.
2. Sometime later (within 30 days of the ad-click), the user enters a physical store and buys a Samsung smartphone with their Mastercard.
3. The advertiser (in this case, Samsung) is fed a report that shows that an ad-click led to a sale at a physical store. Samsung and Google do not know any info about who made the purchase, how much was spent, or when, just that the same user who clicked an ad went out to buy a product.

Google emphasized in its statement that users can opt-out of ad-tracking at any time; however, the fact that no one knew this was happening makes that advice a little disingenuous.

A Mastercard spokesperson also declined to comment on the Google partnership directly but pointed out that Mastercard often shares transaction history with merchants and service providers.

According to anonymous tipsters speaking with Bloomberg, Google has had discussions with other credit card companies about partnerships, and ad agencies have approached Google about tracking even more offline information about customers, such as the time of the transactions and how much was spent.

NEXT: Google’s digital payment app for India, Tez, is now Google Pay

Source: Android Zone

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6 Best Stripe Payment Plugins for WordPress (2018)

Are you looking for the best Stripe payment plugin to accept payments on your WordPress site? Stripe is one of the most popular payment processing companies in the world. It allows you to easily accept credit card payments on your website. In this article, we will share the best Stripe payment plugins for WordPress sites.

Why Use Stripe to Accept Payments on WordPress?

If you want to accept credit card payments on your WordPress website, then there isn’t an easier solution that Stripe.

Stripe is one of the top payment companies that does not require you to go through a lengthy process of getting a merchant account. They allow anyone with a legitimate business to accept credit card payments online. All you need to do is create a Stripe account.

The best part is that your customers do not need to have a Stripe account. They can simply enter their credit card on your website to make a payment.

Accepting online payments on your website has never been this easier. There are many popular payment services that you can use to accept credit card payments on your website.

Note: Stripe requires you to use SSL on your website to accept payments. If you haven’t already done so, then see our guide on how to how to get a free SSL certificate and how to properly switch your WordPress site to https.

Unlike other “best Stripe WordPress plugins articles”, we didn’t just create a random list of Stripe integrations. We hand-picked a list of the top Stripe WordPress payment plugins for each use-case.

That being said, let’s take a look at the top Stripe payment plugins for WordPress that you can use to start accepting payments on your website.

1. WPForms

WPForms is the best drag & drop form builder plugin for WordPress. It is currently being used by over 1 million websites and boast a 4.9 out of 5 star rating average with over 2300+ reviews.

WPForms Pro version allows you to easily accept online payments on your website using Stripe or PayPal.

If you’re looking to create a simple order form or donation form without the hassle of a full-fledged eCommerce platform or shopping cart plugin, then WPForms is the perfect solution for you.

You can create an unlimited number of payments forms and accept credit card payments right on your website. You can add these forms anywhere on your website including posts, pages, sidebar widgets, and more.

For detailed instructions, see our step by step guide on how to easily accept credit card payments in WordPress.

2. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is available as a WordPress plugin, and you can use it to create an online store or sell items on your existing WordPress website. WooCommerce enables you to sell physical goods, digital downloads, as well as membership and subscription courses.

During the Setup Wizard, WooCommerce will ask you to choose payment providers. By default, it will give you two options: PayPal and Stripe. In case, you missed the setup wizard, you can simply install and activate the free Stripe for WooCommerce addon.

3. MemberPress

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin. If you’re looking to sell courses or add a membership option to your website, then MemberPress is a great choice.

MemberPress comes with a Stripe integration for WordPress that allows you to easily accept credit card payments on your site. Their Stripe and PayPal addon are available for all MemberPress membership levels.

You can use it to add paywalls to your site, sell courses, lock specific downloads, etc. MemberPress supports recurring payments, has complete subscription management options and everything else that you would expect from a premier membership plugin.

For detailed instructions, see our step by step guide on how to create a membership website in WordPress.

4. WP Simple Pay Pro

WP Simple Pay Pro enables you to accept payments on your website using Stripe without adding a shopping cart plugin to your website. It allows you to create unlimited payment forms with a Stripe payment button.

You can add all the fields you will need to create a payment form. You can also use it with Easy Pricing Tables plugin to create beautiful pricing pages for your website. Their business plan enables you to add subscription or recurring payments option.

For detailed instructions, see our article on how to accept payments with Stripe in WordPress.

5. Stripe for Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is another popular WordPress eCommerce plugin which allows you to easily sell digital downloads from your website. By default, it comes with PayPal and Amazon payment gateways. Stripe for Easy Digital Downloads is a paid add-on which adds support for accepting online payments via Stripe on your Easy Digital Downloads powered website.

It is suitable for websites that are exclusively selling digital downloads on their website. Once installed, it will add a new payment option in your Easy Digital Downloads settings page. From here, you can set up Stripe and make it your default payment gateway.

6. LearnDash

LearnDash is the best WordPress LMS plugin in the market. It allows you to create and sell courses online. You can easily accept payments on your WordPress site using their free Stripe integration.

LearnDash comes with powerful features like multi-tier courses, assignments for students, quizzes, grading system, and more. You can easily set prerequisites for students such as finishing a lesson first before going to next lesson.

For more details, see our step by step guide on how to sell online courses in WordPress using LearnDash.

We hope this article helped you find the best Stripe payment plugins for WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on more ways to make money online from your WordPress website.

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The post 6 Best Stripe Payment Plugins for WordPress (2018) appeared first on WPBeginner.

Source: Wordpres

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