Shaheen Pasha reports for CNNMoney.com on the range of MasterCard's litigation issues - focusing particularly on merchant litigation over MasterCard's interchange fees and on damages lawsuits pending with American Express and Discover filed following the US government's anti-trust victory over Visa and MasterCard over bylaws banning member banks from issuing Amex and Discover.

MasterCard filed a proxy statement with the SEC today announcing its 2006 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of MasterCard Incorporated to be held on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at 10:00 a.m. (local time) at the MasterCard Incorporated Headquarters, 2000 Purchase Street, Purchase, New York. The proxy also includes details on the board of directors and on executive compensation for MasterCard's senior management team.

ZDNet blogger Garrett Rogers posts about Google Checkout - what he says the press is calling GBuy - and speculates, because of some domain name update activity earlier this afternoon, that it must be getting pretty close to launch.

Mercator Advisory Group's latest report explores the topic of "cardholder steering", the process by which card issuers and merchants seek to influence consumers' choice of payment vehicles.

The law firm Schwartz and Ballen has posted a memorandum (PDF) regarding a recent letter by the Office of Thrift Supervision Chief Counsel concluding that "certain state law restrictions on gift cards are preempted for
federal savings associations and their operating subsidiaries."

Gregory Viscusi of Bloomberg reports on the feud between Visa and MasterCard over future rights to be the official financial services company sponsor of the World Cup and related events.

Karyn McCormack's "Five for the Money" in Business Week discusses "Preparing Your Finances for Disaster". First on her list of things to do to prepare for when things go wrong: Stash Cash. She cites one financial planner's recommendation: "I tell all my clients to keep between $500 and $3,000 (depending on their net worth) in cash hidden in their house to guard against any disaster," says Jorie B. Johnson, a certified financial planner at Financial Futures in Manasquan, N.J., pointing out that an electrical failure or attack on computer systems of financial institutions will freeze access to debit and credit cards. "Small bills will go far in a frozen ATM economy," Johnson says.

Reuters reports on the UK's Office of Fair Trading and its on-going "six-year probe into the fees charged by credit card association MasterCard." The agency is investigating MasterCard's interchange fees in the UK.

Reuters reports on comments made yesterday at a conference in New York by Google CEO Eric Schmidt in which he said Google's plans aren't like PayPal at all - adding "It makes no sense for us to go into businesses that are occupied by existing leaders. We want to solve new problems in the payments space."

The Merchants Payments Coalition has announced that it "welcomes the decision of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R- Pa., to investigate credit card companies and their anti-competitive fee- setting practices in a hearing to be held later this month."

Richard May reports for the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations about a merchant's perspective when selecting a merchant card acquirer - commenting "rent-to-own dealers must be diligent in looking for hidden fees and charges that credit cards apply with every transaction. For example, if a rent-to-own customer uses a debit card instead of a credit card, it affects the dealer's interchange fee."

Esther Schindler writes about Microsoft's CardSpace (formerly InfoCard) - that will provide what Microsoft calls an identity layer for the Internet that's an inclusive, standards-based model built on the "laws of identity." According to Schindler, "for CardSafe to succeed, it will need buy-in from more than site developers. The company is exhorting financial firms and other such organizations — pleading might be a better word — to participate in the managed card program as Identity Providers."

Convenience Store News reports that "credit card fees are the biggest issue in the convenience store industry right now. It's the fastest-growing expense behind labor and rent," according to Jeff Lenard, director of communications for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Last fall, the NACS was one of four major merchant associations that filed an antitrust lawsuit over credit card interchange fees.

Digital Transactions reports on frustrations by some payment software suppliers about the slow pace of merchants achieving compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) who say there's been a distinct lack of visible examples of merchants being fined for non-compliance by the card associations.

Our friends at Consult Hyperion have just launched a new Digital Identity Forum blog to complement their great Digital Money Forum blog.