Google is looking into incorporating Bitcoin .
An article on Forbes shows intent from Google on incorporating the Bitcoin cryptocurrency into its line of products. The article follows Bitcoin enthusiast and early adopter Jarar Malik, a marketing director from Pakistan. Malik, after seeing the rise in popularity after Overstock.com began to accept Bitcoin, decided to email the CEOs of the top tech firms on the whether they intend on supporting Bitcoin in the future. As expected he failed to receive responses from Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Google’s Sergey Brin & Larry Page. After the lack of responses Malik took it down a notch and contacted the firms’ “lieutenants”.
The response he received came from head of Google+ Vic Gundotra. Gundotra ran Malik’s email through Google’s Payments department and forwarded the response back to Malik.
"We are working in the payments team to figure out how to incorporate Bitcoin into our plans," said the email from Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP for Ads and Commerce at Google.
Malik posted the email correspondence to the r/Bitcoin section of reddit. The post quickly gained popularity on reddit, so much so, Malik was later asked by a Google employee to conduct a Google survey asking "What would I want Google to do with Bitcoin?" The survey is intended to see how Google users would like to use a Bitcoin payment option and with what Google products.
When asked by the press, Google spokespeople quickly play down the matter stating "We have no current plans regarding Bitcoin." However, Google has shown interest in Bitcoin with Google Ventures investing in Bitcoin Startup OpenCoin. Google Ventures partner Kevin Rose has also invested personally in the cryptocurrency and in a number of Bitcoin startups.
Unlike some of Google’s competitors who seem to be thwarting the idea of virtual-currencies on their platforms, Google seems to be embracing what its users feel is necessary. Of course an entity the size of Google first will have to play out any and all scenarios before deciding to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.
