Buying Safety Net

With a few exceptions, getting people to pay for information on the Internet has been a losing battle. But Seattle-based Qpass Inc. (https://www.qpass.com) hopes to win that battle with a transaction network it is launching today that would make it easier for people to buy digitized products by requiring that they enter their billing information only once.

After that, customers could purchase and receive information, music or video at a click from any Web site in the Qpass network, which includes the Wall Street Journal, Morningstar and the Industry Standard.

The company is banking on the idea that people will pay for content over the Internet if it is convenient and that information providers will be more willing to make digital versions of premium information available online if there is a market ready to pay for it.

Taking a similar tack, First USA, the nation’s largest Visa and MasterCard lender, and CyberCash Inc. on Monday said that several online merchants, including Borders.com, Virtual Vineyards and CyberianOutpost, have signed up for their VersaPay network.

Both VersaPay and Qpass hope to address people’s reticence toward sending credit card numbers over the Internet every time they shop and to lower the barrier to purchases by requiring less effort on the part of customers.