[stefanp]

Well, the hard part about paypal and probably google checkout isn't processing payments, it's managing fraud - see Max Levchin's interview in the (very good, imho) "Founders at Work" book.

So I'm not surprised google has to do potentally damaging things to somehow make it all work.

The strange part to me is that they don't require and automate this buyer contact info & tracking number gathering from the start.