Forum OpenACS Development: Re: RFC: Donationware Spec

Collapse
3: Re: RFC: Donationware Spec (response to 1)
Posted by Jarkko Laine on 07/24/03 09:39 PM
Hey Steve,

One thing that I didn't find from the specs is the possibility to accept anonymous donations. I don't know if there are any legislative or technical reasons why it wouldn't be feasible, but in practice I could think that there is quite a few people who would like to make their donations incognito.

Collapse
4: Anonymous Donations (response to 3)
Posted by Steve Ivy on 07/24/03 09:54 PM
Jarkko,

That's an interesting idea, though I'm not sure if it's possible using a credit card. If you wanted to remain anonymous, you may have to send a money order by mail - old skool but might be less traceable. ;)

As far as legislative reasons, I don't know.

Collapse
5: Re: Anonymous Donations (response to 4)
Posted by russ m on 07/25/03 03:59 AM
perhaps "anonymous" isn't the right term there, since CC transactions can't be anonymous, but I do think the requirement that someone register at the site to be able to donate places an aditional barrier between the decision to donate and the money arriving in the destination account.

Also, if they register in order to donate and then forget their password, if they want to come back and donate again they'll need to make up a new bogus email address or go through a password retrieval process in order to be able to give you more money (again, a point where you're potentially going to lose them and their money).

I'd suggest that you record the donators info if they're a logged-in user, but also allow users who are not currently registered or logged in to donate...

Collapse
6: Re: Anonymous Donations (response to 5)
Posted by Jarkko Laine on 07/25/03 09:16 AM
Agree that cc transactions can't be really anonymous, but if (and when) we are not storing the card information on the server and tell that to customer, I think what Russell says is as anonymous as it gets with the current infrastructure. Dunno what's going to be on our account listing, though, since I've never received a cc payment, but I'd think the name is not there :)

Of course there's emerging technologies that make real anonymous payment methods in internet possible and I think we should even follow how these things evolve.