Micropayments in Google Checkout soon

It sounds like Google is going to start allowing merchants to accept micropayments soon -- that menas accepting payments anywhere from a penny to a several dollars.

This information was released in a document submitted to the Newspaper Association of America.

Micropayments - While currently in the early planning stages, micropayments will be a payment vehicle available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year. The idea is to allow viable payments of a penny to several dollars by aggregating purchases across merchants and over time. Google will mitigate the risk of non-payment by assigning credit limits based on past purchasing behavior and having credit card instruments on file for those with higher credit limits and using our proprietary risk engines to track abuse or fraud. Merchant integration will be extremely simple.

Micropayments are essential for the future of monetizing content online. It's easy to see how content owners could make more money if they were able to charge a nickel for something instead of being forced to ask for $5.00 due to limitations imposed by their payment service.

I'm hoping they begin allowing Canadian merchants to sell with Google Checkout around the same time the micropayments feature comes online -- but that might be too wishful of thinking.