PayPal Freezes Cryptome's Account

grimwell sends in the news that after Cryptome's little run-in with Microsoft and NetSol, the activist site has now had its funds frozen by PayPal. Cryptome founder John Young notes, "Google lists thousands of instances of this asymmetrical high-handedness." "We have reviewed your PayPal Account, and due to the excessive risk involved, we would like to begin parting ways in a manner that is least disruptive to your business."

Comments

What's a Paypal?

[symbolic]

I have, and will continue to, refuse to conduct business with online entities that do not support a non-Paypal option. I have never used Paypal, and I don't anticipate that this will change.

Re:What's a Paypal?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this were a federally-regulated bank they would not be able to do this.

Re:What's a Paypal?

[0xdeadbeef]

Be careful what you wish for; "regulation" isn't the answer here, it's a big part of the problem.

Because nothing ever bad came from letting banks do whatever they want.

Re:What's a Paypal?

[earls]

Hey, let's play a game called "make up hypothetical situations to support our arguments." In this corner they're bulldozering our house. In the opposite corner they're buying us a mansion. WHO WILL WIN!?!

Re:What's a Paypal?

[wizardforce]

Paypal may be able to refuse to do business with whomever they like but so do we. Every time Paypal pulls a stunt like this, we as private individuals have a right to call them on it.

Re:What's a Paypal?

[Dragonslicer]

That is ridiculous. Destroying private property is illegal, while Refusing to service someone is not. I don't know how you got modded Insightful.

For the sake of this argument, let's take the statement that Paypal froze their funds as being true (I know, this is Slashdot, where the summary is usually wrong). Refusing to give someone money that is rightfully theirs could be considered the equivalent of destroying their property. Giving them the money currently in their account and then refusing to accept any more payments is different from keeping money that was intended as a payment to them, not a payment to Paypal.

Re:What's a Paypal?

[Dogtanian]

Paypal may be able to refuse to do business with whomever they like but so do we. Every time Paypal pulls a stunt like this, we as private individuals have a right to call them on it.

Oh yeah, this pisses me off too. Every time something like this happens, someone will say that they're a private business that has the right to do what it likes- but usually in the context of someone having criticised that company and expressed in a way that seemingly implies that any criticism of their actions runs counter to that principle.

They're entitled to conduct their business how they wish (within reason), and they're entitled to ignore the negative opinions. But they're *not* entitled to expect protection from legitimate criticism, opinion and discussion expressed by others, nor from the effects of such criticism on them if they choose to ignore it.

Same with "you think XXXX product sucks? No-one was putting a gun to your head and making you buy it!" type posts. No- the company is free to sell a products, and people are free to buy it- and others are equally free to express their opinion and advice as they see fit. They don't like that? Tough.

Re:What's a Paypal?

[lawpoop]

And regulation never stopped them. We have plenty of regulations on banks, and take a look at their condition right now. Regulation didn't prevent the recent collapses.

This is the exact opposite of the truth. In the late 1998, congress moved to weaken the Glass-Steagall act, which prevented banks from engaged in the risky securities trading that got them in trouble and caused this recent financial implosion. The Glass-Steagall act was passed after Great Depression when banks got themselves into exactly the same sorts of trouble they are in right now.

In short, regulations kept exactly the situation we're in now from happening for some 70 years. Yes, regulations do work. Not just any arbitrary hammerings, but rules specifically designed to prevent bad, foolish things from happening. If the Glass-Steagall act had been in effect this whole time, we would have never had the tarp and never had to bail out the banks. The old rules didn't apply any longer, and the bankers went nuts dreaming up ever more clever schemes to make money out of nothing. The banking sector lacked regulation.

Lucky bastard.

[acarey]

I'd give anything to get a letter from PayPal like that. For us mere mortals, it takes about 30 click-throughs to close an account. PayPal is the Worst Thing In The World.

Paypal and fraud...

[hadesan]

With heightened visibility comes more scrutiny. Paypal and their more shady customers probably don't want anymore light shown on their activities. Better for paypal to dump cryptome to protect their "more lucrative" albeit more less forthright customers...

Here is a lovely site for some light reading... http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Also an interesting story on a new scam in Boston on a scam using facebook, twitter, and Paypal http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/6000_fall_prey.html

Strategic Attack On Banks?

[DustoneGT]

There was also a recent story about a blogger who had his Citi account closed because he was controversial. Could this be a new trend? Could there be a back story here? I mean law firms of the big players might threaten to sue the bank of an enemy to make life difficult. Let's call this BLAPP, Banking Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

Re:Paypal AUP only states sales of infringing good

[mikkelm]

Yes you do. Unless specifically configured to do otherwise, funds transferred to your PayPal account will remain there as available balance.

Re:When?

[pla]

When will someone come out with a viable competitor for PayPal so that we will finally have a choice?

A viable alternative already exists - Just use your bank as a CC payment processor.

My father runs a small business (under half a million gross per year), and about two years ago discovered that his bank would handle everything for a quite reasonable fee - About the same as he previously paid just to take Visa, and, as a bonus, he can accept the dreaded American Express (as well as just about any major CC) that so many small businesses refuse to touch (meaning he can accept corporate and government business, which tend to use AmEx almost exclusively).

If you expect mostly a lot of very small transactions (such as a typical web site "tip" jar), that model might not work so well. But if you sell anything best measured in "dollars" rather than "cents", it seems like a no-brainer.

fool

[unity100]

as long as there are fools like you who naively believe that crap, we can get out of this mess.

1 million americans risked losing their homes. lets say these were bought from $500,000 at the market's prime. now their value is devalued to $300,000. it makes $200,000 per house difference. multiply it with 1 million houses at risk, it makes $300 bn. it means that the total loss from this was $300 bn.

go even further, and TRIPLE the risk. make it $900 bn.

america itself provided more than $1.2 trillion to banks. europe provided similar ~$1 trillion amount. switzerland and other countries provided separate amounts to their banks.

it means that as of now, the governments worldwide covered approx SEVEN times the loss in this crisis.

then WHY the fuck we are not getting out of it ? despite ALL potential losses are covered in multiples ?

BECAUSE IT ISNT A HOUSING CRISIS.

it is a crisis of investment tools. the banks have created bonds indexed on these houses, and then moved to create EXTRA assets indexed on those bonds and so on. in the end, they created WATER VAPOR assets, which were traded at around SIXTY times the entire worth of all houses they were based upon.

this means wall street banks peddled worthless paper that is inflated over SIXTY times of what value they should have to people around the world. even leaving aside the big fraud that is creating derived assets over other derived assets in the first place.

and the SOLE reason this has happened is, because bush administration left banks unregulated, didnt even touch them, and let them do this immense fraud. while whole world has been trusting that since usa was a G5 country, its banking and finance mechanisms would work properly. it didnt. because fraud was allowed.

as said, as long as there are fools like you who still doesnt know how they really been screwed, and as long as there are fools like the one modded you insightful, this fraud is bound to repeat.