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MasterCard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers

Posted by Soulskill on from the one-step-forward,-two-steps-back dept.

Nyder sends this quote from TorrentFreak: "Swedish payment service provider Payson received an email stating that VPN services are no longer allowed to accept Visa and MasterCard payments due to a recent policy change. ... The new policy went into effect on Monday, leaving customers with a two-day window to find a solution. While the email remains vague about why this drastic decision was taken, in a telephone call Payson confirmed that it was complying with an urgent requirement from Visa and MasterCard to stop accepting payments for VPN services. 'It means that U.S. companies are forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protest their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA can spy even more.'" Oddly, this comes alongside news that MasterCard has backed down on its financial blockade against WikiLeaks.

4 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. US considered hostile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't use US services.

  2. Re:Oh whatever by faedle · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use a VPN service (VyprVPN). I'm a USian.

    My primary reason for using it is that many "open" hotspots have filters. These filters often filter out content that is merely "politically inconvenient", usually to the Religious Right. Since a lot of the web filtering software has ties to these self-appointed censors, they tend to be very aggressive on what they filter.

    VyprVPN allows me to access these sites even from behind this restrictive filtering.

  3. Re:Request, and suggestion... by somenickname · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can find a good rundown of privacy and payment options for a lot of popular VPN services here: http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-that-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2013-edition-130302/

    Basically, if you so choose, you can use a VPN service very anonymously.

  4. Re:Oh whatever by dryeo · · Score: 4, Informative

    They made it harder for non-Americans to pretend to be Americans and subscribe to things like netflix. Lots of people want to pay for content, content that is not available in their country or content that is much cheaper in the States so they get a VPN to pretend that they're somewhere else.

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism