Online payment service PayPal announced last night that they have suspended the account of Wikileaks:
“PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We’ve notified the account holder of this action.”
1 |
Obdicut Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:33:44am |
Took ‘em long enough. Paypay normally suspends accounts at the drop of a hat.
| 2 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:33:45am |
Considering how fast they are to collect as much money as possible, this is one Wikileaks bit that brings out the cynic/conspiracy theorist in me. Ebay/Paypal is just too greedy for this not to be due to arm twisting by the feds.
/well, it wouldn’t surprise me in this case.
| 4 |
Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:34:52am |
This raises the question - why hasn’t this been done earlier? WL has been in the news for a considerable amount of time now.
| 5 |
Political Atheist Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:36:45am |
Oh those pesky Terms Of Use agreements. Good for Paypal. Next I’d like to see Mr Assange playing a guitar at an old train station for change for his starving servers…
(Not wishing homelessness on anyone, but homeless stolen data works for me just fine)
| 6 |
Political Atheist Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:39:04am |
re: #4 Sergey Romanov
I’ll bet they got a little note from our government, pointing out the violation. And pointing out how important a policy like that is to a good company like PayPal.
| 7 |
Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:39:46am |
re: #6 Rightwingconspirator
Well that’s hardly to be doubted.
| 8 |
Mostly sane, most of the time. Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:39:54am |
You have the right to speak.
You do not have the right to be heard, because other people own their own ears.
You do not have the right to force others to assist you in your speech.
| 9 |
wrenchwench Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:40:19am |
re: #6 Rightwingconspirator
I’ll bet they got a little note from our government, pointing out the violation. And pointing out how important a policy like that is to a good company like PayPal.
And the longer they delayed, the more money they got a percentage of. I’ll bet donations jumped in the last few days.
| 10 |
Mostly sane, most of the time. Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:41:05am |
So…I can’t use paypal to raise money for my super-duper mega magneto-nuclear reactor with which I plan on taking over the world?
Bummer.
| 11 |
Political Atheist Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:42:23am |
re: #9 wrenchwench
And the longer they delayed, the more money they got a percentage of. I’ll bet donations jumped in the last few days.
Till somebody bounced a Czech.
| 12 |
Obdicut Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:42:24am |
re: #2 wlewisiii
It’s been my experience that Paypayl loves semi-randomly closing down accounts.
Like, say, for all of India.
[Link: www.suite101.com…]
Or because a gun was offered in a raffle.
[Link: www.examiner.com…]
| 13 |
William Barnett-Lewis Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:49:01am |
re: #12 Obdicut
Oh, I know. I’ve gotten screwed by them more than once. However, this is the flip side of that where if the moneys good (counterfeit goods anyone?) they’ll turn a blind eye unless forced no to by the feds.
| 15 |
What, me worry? Sat, Dec 4, 2010 9:55:43am |
Wikileaks and Pamela have something in common! Have we reached the nexus of the universe??
| 16 |
Charles Johnson Sat, Dec 4, 2010 10:08:30am |
re: #15 marjoriemoon
Unfortunately, PayPal restored the shrieking harpy’s account.
| 17 |
What, me worry? Sat, Dec 4, 2010 10:16:47am |
re: #16 Charles
Unfortunately, PayPal restored the shrieking harpy’s account.
Oh I forgot about that. Dang, I thought I was on to something.
| 18 |
Mark Winter Sat, Dec 4, 2010 10:31:16am |
any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity
Oh. Paypal’s no longer cooperating with banks?
| 19 |
Nick Schroeder Sat, Dec 4, 2010 10:38:01am |
Meh, I am no fan of this anti-American WikiLeaks cockbag and the black eye he’s sort of given us on the world stage.
However, there are a couple of overriding factors here for me. Firstly, this whole boondoggle has shown that we classify some really dumb, trivial shit, which kind of mitigates and undermines the importance of the whole classification process. Secondly, the Fox News and mainstream media talking heads who are suggesting killing the guy without batting an eyelash are flat-out fascists. And I’m not using hyperbole there at all. The criminal in all of this is the asshole who stole the documents from our apparently deleteriously inefficient network. Now, if it is ever proven at some point that Assange provided assistance to the guy by helping hack into areas he wouldn’t normally have had access to, then we can talk about charging the guy with something. But until then, all Assange is ‘guilty’ of is being an anti-American dickhead pseudo-journalist, and none of those things are criminal.
Now, to be perfectly honest, if I were the head of Amazon or PayPal or any other tech company, I’d pull the plug on all his shit and issue a press release that said we did it simply because, as an American company, we simply didn’t support his mission of hurting Americas image by publishing stolen documents. I might be kind of snooty high minded discerning paleo-conservative (or as a Tea Party ‘patriot’ might label me, a liberal), but I’m not immune to the occasional feelings of nationalism. And when people like Assange do shit like this, I succumb to by more base instincts and hope the guy fails and loses all of his support. I like the idea of the free market crushing his nonsense a lot better than government witch hunts and special laws which would later encroach on everyone’s freedoms just because of this idiot.
| 20 |
Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton Sat, Dec 4, 2010 10:48:28am |
re: #19 Nick Schroeder
*virtual handshake*
| 21 |
McSpiff Sat, Dec 4, 2010 10:59:53am |
re: #19 Nick Schroeder
Meh, I am no fan of this anti-American WikiLeaks cockbag and the black eye he’s sort of given us on the world stage.
However, there are a couple of overriding factors here for me. Firstly, this whole boondoggle has shown that we classify some really dumb, trivial shit, which kind of mitigates and undermines the importance of the whole classification process. Secondly, the Fox News and mainstream media talking heads who are suggesting killing the guy without batting an eyelash are flat-out fascists. And I’m not using hyperbole there at all. The criminal in all of this is the asshole who stole the documents from our apparently deleteriously inefficient network. Now, if it is ever proven at some point that Assange provided assistance to the guy by helping hack into areas he wouldn’t normally have had access to, then we can talk about charging the guy with something. But until then, all Assange is ‘guilty’ of is being an anti-American dickhead pseudo-journalist, and none of those things are criminal.
Now, to be perfectly honest, if I were the head of Amazon or PayPal or any other tech company, I’d pull the plug on all his shit and issue a press release that said we did it simply because, as an American company, we simply didn’t support his mission of hurting Americas image by publishing stolen documents. I might be kind of snooty high minded discerning paleo-conservative (or as a Tea Party ‘patriot’ might label me, a liberal), but I’m not immune to the occasional feelings of nationalism. And when people like Assange do shit like this, I succumb to by more base instincts and hope the guy fails and loses all of his support. I like the idea of the free market crushing his nonsense a lot better than government witch hunts and special laws which would later encroach on everyone’s freedoms just because of this idiot.
Sums my feelings up perfectly. QFT.
| 22 |
Charles Johnson Sat, Dec 4, 2010 11:19:59am |
re: #19 Nick Schroeder
At this point, though, I seriously doubt that the government had to even say a word to PayPal about this, even if they had wanted to. I’m sure any company that does business with Assange is having their lawyers and advisers check out whether he’s violating their terms; you don’t need a phone call from the State Department to realize that Assange has crossed some big lines and it might not be smart to be doing business with him.
And the fact is that the PayPal terms of service really do prohibit them from doing business with Wikileaks:
…our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity
That’s exactly what Wikileaks is. They’re encouraging people to break laws, and promoting the product of that illegal activity. Seems clear to me.
| 23 |
Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton Sat, Dec 4, 2010 11:22:13am |
re: #22 Charles
Hmm. I would’ve readily agreed if this happened after the Afghanistan leak. But now?
| 24 |
Nick Schroeder Sat, Dec 4, 2010 11:26:18am |
re: #22 Charles
you don’t need a phone call from the State Department to realize that Assange has crossed some big lines and it might not be smart to be doing business with him.
Completely agreed. I like that companies are responding in this manner, whatever their justification. If WikiLeaks was exposing some sort of specific serious injustice or criminal activity, I would likely feel somewhat differently, but this is just a massive data dump specifically to embarrass us and damage our ability to conduct diplomatic negotiations on the world stage. As I mentioned, were it my company, I wouldn’t even go down the ‘encouraging criminal activity’ avenue, I would go with ‘I don’t like you, piss off’. :)
| 25 |
APox Sat, Dec 4, 2010 4:21:21pm |
I was outrageously outraged over the Wikileaks, as can be seen from my past comments. But there is a cynical anger that I’m beginning to feel over all of this. It’s quite interesting how quickly large corporations can completely shut this group down, and albeit that the leaks may have harmed our diplomats, it doesn’t seem to have done all that damn much.
Somehow everything stopped working for him after he starts targeting banks. Shouldn’t have fucked with them.
| 26 |
APox Sat, Dec 4, 2010 4:36:29pm |
Adding to my previous little blurb…
I was listening to a good thing on NPR today about the diplomatic leaks, and they were jokingly saying… Does this really tell us anything we don’t already know? The people that we talked bad about, saying Afghanistan’s government was unethical (duh), there was name calling… Observations that were offensive, yes, but observations that people could probably derive on their own from watching the actions of these leaders.
What was surprising was the idea that China might be okay with North Korea eventually falling, Saudi Arabia supporting a US attack on Iran … Both of which are kind of positive things for the United States. Now, I’m sure it’s not good for the cards we are holding to be revealed, but I wouldn’t say there were real negative insights leaked, other than the Hillary incident.
Anyone care to disagree/debate? :)
| 27 |
shai_au Sat, Dec 4, 2010 4:42:35pm |
Good for Paypal, but Assange and Wikileaks aren’t the real problems. Get rid of them, and something similar will pop up. It’s the Internet.
And while these diplomatic cables and other leaks could be damaging, I support “illegal” whistleblowing when it reveals wrongdoing. So I don’t think the practice should be condemned in general.
Not that anyone here has been doing so. I’m just saying.
| 28 |
Funky_Gibbon Sat, Dec 4, 2010 5:36:27pm |
re: #22 Charles
And the fact is that the PayPal terms of service really do prohibit them from doing business with Wikileaks:That’s exactly what Wikileaks is. They’re encouraging people to break laws, and promoting the product of that illegal activity. Seems clear to me.
The conspiracy theorists will go on and on about how the US government leaned on Paypal et al to get them to drop Wikileaks but as you say WL have publicly crossed the lines set out in their various TOS and Acceptable Use Policies. They might have been willing to turn a blind eye when Wikileaks was publishing stuff that was genuinely of public interest but this latest leak is almost entirely made up of the banal opinions of individuals on banal subjects. Nothing published so far justifies the theft and publication of hundreds of thousands of cables and the potential damage to international relations and the consequence therein.
So now all these companies are facing up to the reality that Wikileaks has broken the terms of their service in the most public way imaginable and for nothing more than what amounts to embarrassing gossip. I don’t think any of them had any choice, particularly their DNS provider in the face of DOS attacks on their servers.
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