I can't close my PayPal account yet (although I will be encouraging my European customers to move to Moneybookers), but ... there's no way to email them about their own corporate actions. Does anybody know of an email address that I can just address with a complaint? Although a paper letter with a real stamp may get their attention more effectively...
The next stop would be check their database for all account that ever sent money to Wikileaks or the Wau Holland Stiftung and close those too. And then the ones who ever send money to those.
PayPal went over board with this, as the Wau Holland Foundation just gave money to Wikileaks for a specific purpose holding them accountable for any spendings. It is impossible to argue that the money from the foundation was used for any illegal/criminal activity.
I donated and have written Paypal to ask for clarification on why the account was closed and what their policy is for returning the money or seeing it through to the intended recipient, etc.
Hopefully others who donated will do this as well so that there are at least some customer service costs associated with this. As you mention, there doesn't seem to be much if any illegality about the activities that I can spot, and fair use for political speech covers the rest.
Being frustrated with PayPal's poor support, but pleased with its ubiquity, this was an lost opportunity for PayPal to earn my goodwill. I, for one, am advocating against paypal from now on.
I am reading a lot of boycott statement against Paypal in the comments – and I fully understand – but guys... where have you been when Amazon refused to host Wikileaks? And what about EasyDNS?
Paypal is a company doing business and I dislike them as much as you do but please don't forget that Government >> Company. Always.
Amazon is much harder for me to move away from than PayPal. with PayPal, I just transfer my money out and click the cancel button.
With Amazon, I have to re-do my entire deployment setup, since Heroku has made it so freaking easy. Not to mention migrate all of my addon accounts too... significantly more complicated.
I have the same problem with PayPal. 70% of my income comes from Europe through PayPal. I'm seriously considering moving to Moneybookers, though, for my European customers. This really stinks.
Letting PayPal keep all Wikileaks' donation money for themselves is not exactly something that requires that much arm-twisting. They've done it before, and now they have a scapegoat.
yeah, what's the story with that? Shouldn't the money either be given to Wikileaks (unlikely) or returned the the donor? In what sort of world can the middle man cut one side of a deal out, and keep the money?
WikiLeaks. They stole documents and they are publishing them without the consent of the owners. The fact that this owner is the government is irrelevant.
How would you feel if it were your personal emails that were published on a public web site like this?
Just on the off-chance that you are serious: it is of the utmost importance that the owner is a government, not a private person. The argument is that the government is keeping secrets from its people without the people being able to change that by normal means.
You are also incorrect about Wikileaks stealing any documents. They are only publishing.
How will WePay as a US company offer any real guarantee not to do the same?
Can WePay make any commitment or guarantee given that they are integrated into a system and other entities (i.e. Visa, Mastercard, etc) could pull their plug over this?
I'm really just curious. If WePay honestly will do the right thing and treat money as money regardless of how people choose to spend it (the whole thing here... porn, politics, etc) and to do so with a real guarantee that means this can never happen, then I just do not see how this is any opportunity for them.
Paypal suspends my account at least once a month just because I sometimes use a different IP when logging in, I'm honestly shocked they didn't do this to Wikileaks earlier.
According to wikileaks you can still donate by credit card via https://donations.datacell.com. I'm not clear if the processor is based in Iceland or Switzerland.
Since when can what Wikileaks does be considered criminal activity? I'd think that it's at least not clear cut enough that companies would wait for some kind of conviction before labeling it all illegal/criminal activity.
TBH, I was amazed they didn't pull the plug sooner, considering all the negativity surrounding paypal. I haven't had any issues with paypal myself, but reading all the stories from other people having issues with them... I don't know, I would really REALLY like to have an alternative somewhere, but sadly there isn't one.
I'm sorry, I meant paypal alternative for payments and money transfers through internet, not as a collection/donation service for groups. Sad fact is that nothing is as widespread as paypal. And even paypal doesn't have an option to receive money here (Croatia) because national bank (governs bank policies among other things) wants them to be regulated like other banks here, so they're "talking about it".
To me, it sounds like a pretty obvious route for a startup disruption opportunity. I guess bar is set too high (financially and logistically) for a small-ish startup to make a significant entry to that market (global). There are compatible businesses that could make a significant entry/impact, but they didn't do it (Western Union, Moneybookers, Google Checkout, Amazon...) - I always wondered why (if we choose to ignore the stronghold of ebay paypal has behind it).
wepay and paypal would face the same issues of false positive on fraud. The only thing that could help would be the day all banks implements OpenTransact which is basically OAuth for payment http://www.opentransact.org/ with no intermediary between banks, maybe one day... I know Banksimple said they would implement it.
Well, I hope all this does not come as a surprise to Wikileaks.
They are essentially screwing the US government, and using services (Paypal, Amazon etc.) which are incorporated in the US, and operates under the US regulations.
Please don't blame PayPal that much. If you have been in their situation, you'll very likely do the same. So if you have any issues, go and blame the US gov.
While PayPal deserves the negative rep for screwing their customers, it doesn't deserve it for being a US corporation, vulnerable to the US government. The bad guy here is not PayPal.
What laws, in particular, did you have in mind? Wikileaks has not, to the best of my knowledge, been charged with any violation of law in the United States (or anywhere else, for that matter).
I don't see anyone suggesting Amazon or PayPal violated any laws in this discussion, but maybe I missed it. I certainly haven't made such a suggestion.
That was my impression of silverstorm's comment - that PayPal has to comply with US law and thus shouldn't be denigrated for this decision. Not even Wikileaks has been shown to have violated US law, but my point was that Yahoo and PayPal can't even rely on the fact that they have to comply with US law, because they haven't violated it at all.
Well. They may have now - PayPal in particular could be accused of fraud for freezing an account unless they release the funds relatively quickly. This might even have the kind of visibility that would result in that kind of good outcome.
Wikileaks really is shining light on a lot of roaches this week...
Is this a serious post? The government can exact capricious petty revenge on your business, so it's not the business's fault for exercising cowardice?
It would be unbelievably easy to rightfully Godwin your perspective on this issue, but I won't do it.
The United States is a nation predicated on a set of inviolate rights that are supposedly protected by the charter document of the nation itself. Among these rights are the right to hold property, conduct affairs freely, and speak freely. The courts have repeatedly defined rights that are derivative of our constitutionally-protected ones, and that among these are the ability to conduct business free from the threat of arbitrary governmental coercion( e.g. absent of a "chilling effect" ), with obvious exceptions made where the business has committed a crime.
PayPal, Amazon, et. al. Have not broken the law by providing services to Wikileaks, and are, therefore, not in danger of retribution by the government specified in the US Constitution. The salient point here may be that the government we have is possibly NOT the government specified by the US Constitution, and these companies ARE in danger of capricious revenge by the government. And if this is the case, we as a nation are living under the thumb of a truly illegitimate government - and we have bigger issues to worry about than the cowardice of companies.
But whether or not we exist in a nation of arbitrarily exacted State power, nothing changes the fact that Amazon and PayPal are corporate cowards, in the absence of an actual, honest-to-god court order. To say they should be held harmless is, well, an "interesting" perspective.
>PayPal, Amazon, et. al. Have not broken the law by providing services to Wikileaks
I would be surprised if it's not illegal to aid in the dissemination of classified material. Nevertheless, its certainly illegal to aid an abet terrorists. Seeing as the government owns the monopoly on defining who is a terrorist, it's not a stretch at all to see there might be actual legal consequences down the road for these companies.
This may not be "right", but this isn't Amazon's or Paypal's fight to have. I don't blame them one bit. This is Wikileak's problem to deal with--It comes with the territory.
Nope. While they may have a case against the original leaker, once it's out, classified information is out in the United States (not so in the UK, with the Official Secrets Act) and further disclosure is at least nominally protected by the Constitution.
No, the legal ramifications only come into play when the government officially declares something a terrorist organization. In the USA, this would be done by the State Department, which has yet to issue such a proclamation. All this folding by American companies until Wikileaks is actually branded such is (depending on your POV) pure cowardice or generous cooperation with the present interests of government.
Here is a direct Link if you want to do it yourself. https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_close-account