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PayPal Freezes the Assets of Wikileaks.org
matsh sends word that PayPal has frozen the assets of wikileaks.org. From their Web site: "Paypal has as of 23rd of January 2010 frozen WikiLeaks assets. This is the second time that this happens. The last time we struggled for more than half a year to resolve this issue. By working with the respected and recognized German foundation Wau Holland Stiftung we tried to avoid this from happening again — apparently without avail." The submitter adds: "Hopefully we can pressure PayPal to resolve this quickly, since this seems like a dangerous political decision."
This has been going on for many years, with many different groups. Until people stop using Paypal, or some sort of oversight or audit is performed, it will continue to happen. Mayhap Wikileaks should try and dig up information on Paypal.
If your organization used Paypal and they froze your assets once, and you "struggled for more than half a year" to resolve it, why the fuck would you STILL be using Paypal?
Yes. It is too much. As of Thursday our government is owned by the huge corporations. No one there is going to care if individuals are treated correctly or even if corps follow through their contracts.
Unfortunately Paypal is really the only option for a lot of smaller sites for whom a merchant account is too much hassle and expense.
This is really the fault of the person who decided to keep their assets in a PayPal account. And this isn't the first time? Well, they just don't learn do they.
PayPal can freeze accounts for any number of reasons, of which very few have to do with the owner of the account. If someone pays you with a stolen card or from an account that is suspected to have been compromised, that can trigger a freeze. Their support is notoriously bad, and their instructions for re-enabling your account are always overcomplicated.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who receives money with PayPal.
Money received => withdraw immediately
NEVER HOLD A PAYPAL BALANCE.
Always be ready to redirect payments to a backup account.
Fail, fail. The government is standing up to China on behalf of a corporation. If our government actually believed in human rights, we wouldn't favor trade with China above all other nations.
Why treat China differently than our own country? The Supreme Court just ruled that only corporations have rights.
Oh, sorry, I jumped ahead. That's the next week's chapter of America's March Back to Plutocracy.
Did you read Stevens' dissent? Y'know, the thing that would have resulted as precedent had Kennedy voted with Stevens. No? Cause if you had you would have noticed it treated speech strictly as audible noise.
The dissenting opinion being worse does not make the majority opinion a good one, or an improvement over the status quo.
That could be viewed as flamebait, but you raise a valid point, so I'd like to offer a valid response. Wikileak's account was not suspended because they were convicted by any government of violating any particular law. They were convicted by PayPal itself, in the court of PayPal, in a manner that does not resemble any system.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
A business can simply choose not to do business with you at any time for any reason, even a secret one.
Conversely, a potential customer can choose not to do business with Paypal at any time for any reason, or even for no reason whatsoever. The fact that Paypal terminates accounts arbitrarily and confiscates balances arbitrarily with no right of appeal is a damn good reason not to do business with them, regardless of whether or not they are acting legally. So I see nothing wrong with avoiding Paypal, or recommending that others avoid Paypal, or explaining why doing business with Paypal is a bad idea -- which is exactly what the GP did.