Slashdot Mirror
India Suspended From PayPal For "At Least a Few Months"
More details have come about about what was behind PayPal's decision to suspend personal payments to any user in India, as we discussed on Sunday. In a blog post today, PayPal revealed that payments to India will remain in suspension for at least a few months. Customers in India will be able to pull rupees out of the service into their bank accounts within a few days. The suspension came about when Indian government regulators raised questions about whether PayPal's service was enabling remittances (transfers of money by foreign workers) to Indian citizens. "The problems may have been triggered by a marketing push that promotes PayPal as a way to send money abroad, a source familiar with the matter said. The campaign — which reads 'As low as $1.50 to send $300 to countries like India' — may have caught the attention of Indian regulators, the source said."
Stopping money flow and financial services innovation is, like Internet censorship,
a symptom of the fundamental conflict between the traditional role the state has expanded
to cover (ie governments) and the transparent, open and global nature of the Internet.
When everyone on the planet can communicate directly and immediately, through
fully automated translators, to any other connected person or to large groups
- why exactly do we need massive percentages (10-50%) of our resources funneled
to maintain the state and state-run defense and services? To preserve the old lines
on maps and control the access to major geographic regions? In almost every single
case, Internet connected people and services will do a better job.
The necessary reasons for countries as they exist today mostly go away when the
Internet fully connects individuals.* Obsolescence is a terrible thing for
bureaucracy, but can be framed as the primary driver of most "issues" governments
have with the Internet.
* physical defense and security being the only notable exception.
Isn't this in direct contradiction to something PayPal said a day or two ago? Something akin to "golly gee we're not sure what happened but we're looking into it".
On another note, this applies to private transactions only, not commercial ones. This directly affects any freelancers who aren't operating as a company though, such as Rent-A-Coder, et. al.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
What negative portrayal of India is there here?
Seriously, there's nothing negative at all in any of those links (well I'm sure there is in the comments on the link to another slashdot article, but that article itself isn't) or in the summary.
My IP, name, address, phone number, etc. are banned on paypal and any variation thereof and they tried to send a collection agency after me for 2 accounts I had. I told them to fuck off and they can't do jack since I, as a precautionary measure, changed my bank account numbers as soon as they limited my accounts. Just because some buyer decides to do a chargeback on his credit card 120 days after purchase does not mean I am responsible for the money. Paypal is not a bank. I did not borrow from them. I do not owe them anything, and they can't touch my credit. The paypalsucks website is living truth of what they can do to their customers. Some people lost $5K plus, and most are scared into cooperating by the collection agency. I at least didn't lose anything except for the account I opened in 1999 and my ability to use ebay, but they can lose the business. I use craigslist instead now and don't have to pay to put up auctions or pay transfer fees.
Exactly. Think of the West a century or so ago. Enforcement of the law (specifically for taxes) is very difficult and most people do end runs around the government. Bribing Income Tax (India's IRS) officers is routine for most businessmen. The situation is improving but is far from ideal.