<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Google has acquired the technology, patents and &amp;quot;certain assets&amp;quot; from online trust seal provider KikScore, in what is being viewed as a sign of coming expansion to the search giant&amp;#039;s Trusted Store service. In a blog post on June 1, KikScore announced the acquisition and said that its service will no longer be available as of June 28.  KikScore is recommending that its customers, mostly small businesses, &amp;quot;should check out the Google Trusted Store product as an alternative to the KikScore service&amp;quot;.  Launched last October, Google&amp;#039;s Trusted Store programme offers online businesses a &amp;#039;seal of approval&amp;#039; for their products to increase customer confidence. In exchange for a Trust Store seal on their site, online merchants must adhere to strict shopping and customer service standards.  Google also offers a free purchase protection service to help customers solve issues or problems with billing, shipping or returns.  KikScore works slightly differently, using a patent-pending algorithm to provide businesses with a &amp;quot;trust score&amp;quot; based on a variety of factors, ranging from customer feedback to credit worthiness.      Raj Malik, who co-founded KikScore at a Fuddruckers restaurant in Northern Virginia in 2008, confirmed that he would not be joining Google, but instead launch another startup this summer.  &amp;quot;It has been a sincere pleasure for the entire KikScore team to serve so many small businesses and also work to help them be successful through this blog, tweetchats and our December 2011 white paper,&amp;quot; Malik wrote in the blog post.  &amp;quot;There is still great work to be done for small businesses and that is why we are so excited that an industry leader will be able to build off of the technology, platform and IP that we spent our blood, sweat and tears building, developing and launching.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a385258/google-acquires-kikscore-trust-seal-provider/>