In another move by US companies to run away from any association with WikiLeaks, Paypal.com today announced it would cease processing transactions.
Wikileaks has been asking for contributions to support its efforts and such contributions were being proceed through Paypal.com
PayPal said its payment service cannot be used for activities “that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity”.
US-based PayPal said on its blog today:
“”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.”
I still find it very interesting while three US based companies have taken action again WikiLeaks this week to cut off ties with them, that the US government has not stepped in to attempt at least to seize the .org domain as they did with over 80 sites last week although Wikileaks has now moved to a ccTLD.
“the US government has not stepped in to attempt at least to seize the .org domain”
====
1. .ORG has been removed for many consumers
2. The U.S. Government is in the process of testing their power over ICANN to remove the entire .ORG TLD (which includes ICANN) [ think saw and tree branch they are sitting on ]
3. The new DNS technology allows selected TLDs to be SLOW-Resolved. An Artificial Delay can be injected in the CPE. Consumers get tired of waiting and waiting.
4. The .ORG owners are being given time to migrate to *-ORG.com domains
5. The .ORG owners are being given time to migrate to other new domains
.ORG is in the final days it will SLOW.LY (and quietly) be handled by the U.S. Government
could be the end of the cloud if you can’t trust your data to be safe.
Todaro
How so?
What does this have to do with keeping your data safe?
The siezure of 80 domains, the letter from Lawrence Strickling, Paypal’s decision: I’m beginning to have hope of community involvement to preserve what is US National treasure and gift to the world: the internet!
Now we just have to bring company profits from offshore accounts back into US borders to be taxed at their regular rates.
1. Stop using Paypal
2. Help bradleymanning.org for bringing out the truth.
3. Forward all your parked domains which arent paying crap anyway, to wikileaks.ch
What’s gonna happen?
A few 100 000 domains forwarding to wikileaks.ch could show the power of direct navigation to the non believers.
What are registrars or the government going to do? Put everybody in jail or shut down the internet? I dont’t think so.
but, I suppose that NYT etc. don’t pay WikiLeaks via PayPal… 🙂
I wonder why they don’t stop processing payments for ebay?? Thousands of counterfeit/stolen items are sold and displayed on the site daily. It’s amazing how the truth scares so many of these people. You can still contribute to this amazing news/corruption reporting service via the new links. They still accept credit cards and wire transfers.
long live wiki!!!!
http://wikileaks.ch/support.html
The Government’s priorities are all screwed up.
“The Government’s priorities are all screwed up.”
===
In America you still get a chance to elect the government.
In ICANN and the ISOC YOU get ZERO chance to elect “the government”.
In CyberSpace you are on your own. There is no government. It is the Wild West.
“In CyberSpace you are on your own. There is no government. It is the Wild West.”
Thank goodness for a medium that normal citizens can access and decide for themselves what is truthful and what is lies.
Links to help Bradley Manning the courageous soldier who let this gorilla out of the box are at http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Hopefully this is just the beginning. Why doesn’t paypal terminate ebay’s account. Everyday thousands of counterfeit and stolen goods are fenced across their platform. Ball-less companies only concerned about taking you money. pathetic.
🙂
Whats New Really… I don’t necessarily support Wikileaks. however, I do have the following to say about PayPal:
I am Lebanese, and its a shame to say (after years of
inquiring about the reasons PayPal exclude Lebanon from its list) that I cannot be a PayPal member simply because I am Lebanese – no other valid reason worth mentioning.
I searched and searched rigorously for an explanation, and when I finally received a hint of an answer through an Ebay staff member, the answer was ridiculous: “Lebanon do not approve of Electronic Signatures….”
Well, if this is the case, Lebanon would’ve been blocked by
MoneyBookers and countless other online services similar to PayPal; and even more, no Visa or Master Card issued from Lebanon would then be successfully used as an instant online payment method. I just spent half a million dollars through my Lebanese visa just this year on online payments for domain names.
Knowing the importance of Lebanon in the Middle East, as a country that has hosted a diversity of religions and acted as a Bridge between the East and the West, for centuries, as a country that has paid the most expensive prices to maintain its integrity and sovereignty, as a country with 7000 yr history of civilization that started with the most ancient merchants and traders on the face of this earth, our forefathers, the Phoenicians who transported the Alphabet and Europa to the rest of the world; and
the important roles Lebanese Figures has played in the commerce world, from Micheal Naders, to Carlos Sleem, to to Neiman Marcus, to Carlos Ghosn, to Elie Saab etc, its a shame to say that PayPal is fine with Angola and Ethiopia and Sudan, even our neighboring nomadic country Jordan, yet they are not Ok with Lebanon and the Lebanese – the people renowned for speaking more than 3 languages and playing some of the most important roles in the world.
There is only one explanation I find for this, and I’m willing to share it with the world: POLITICAL PREJUDICE.
Believe it or not, PayPal practices political prejudice, and I’m not yet sure to whose advantage this is, and don’t care to know any longer.
Yes, as a Lebanese, I cannot participate on Ebay or in any
Service that do not accept PayPal alternative. Then,
I have no choice but to wish the Tower of Babylon that PayPal has become the fate of the ancient tower, and to wish what the French at once wished for the Bastile that PayPal has become.
I hope PayPal starts treating people more humanly. I see thousand of online reports of people with frozen accounts on PayPal (all in the name of security), and I am glad to join the crowd that are willing to support any alternative to PayPal – because they are simply a pain to deal with.
As a kid, I’ve been raised to learn that saying “NO” for no reason is rude and impolite and it hides major insecurity issues behind it. So, When PayPal says “NO” to Lebanon, PayPal better clarify to the world its reasons, otherwise, its not only impolite, rude and immature, its plain prejudice…
If the problem is not from PayPal but from a Lebanese side, let the world know who is preventing PayPal from lifting the block on Lebanon; otherwise, the Lebanese may not be citizens of a large country in size, but they have a loud voice, and when they speak, the world can’t help but listen…
“Stop using Paypal”
it’s like say “stop using Google” or “stop using Windows” or “stop using eBay”
PayPal is a sort of monopoly today like Google, Windows or eBay, so, unfortunately, if you don’t use them, you only damage yourself
the only way to compete with PayPal (but only in the long term) is to start a similar service but with dramatically lower (or no) transaction fees
unfortunately, if you start such service, you probably you won’t have enough profit to invest and grow or, maybe, zero profits
I don’t choose not to use them, they’ve chosen not to accept me, because I’m Lebanese.
No for No reason = Prejudice , even if they are God himself…. In Lebanon, everything has a solution… We’ve endured living under fire and with no electricity… Heck, we can get over PayPal… We’ve endured more than 400 yrs of Turkish rule… Even the ottoman empire went down… We’ll get over it… Don’t worry about us… However, I’m worried about PayPal if they keep treating people as they do…
remember that NOT EVEN Google Checkout has been able to compete with PayPal
“they’ve chosen not to accept me”
with this wrong policy PayPal just loses millions potential users
Not only PayPal, but also the online services who do not realize that PayPal is not supported by most countries, and don’t offer alternative payment methods…
“don’t offer alternative payment methods”
just say it them, probably many don’t know they’re losing thousands potential customers
Yes, Lebanon is a small country, but you can think of Lebanon as a Huge Billboard in the MiddleEast on the biggest highway you can imagine. Lebanon is not just a country on the map…
So, if you’re being a little sacrcastic, its fine… Principles are what build companies and not number… The Number is aftermath…
I don’t refer to PayPal but to the web services that use PayPal
I get you… PayPal, by the way, cannot be compared to Google… Google are so considerate of each country’s specific situation and/or condition, and provide unbelievable professional services and options that cater to those situations…
It will take PayPal another decade to be compared to Google. By then, I’m sure hundreds of alternative options to PayPal will be available…
Ahhhh, PayPal …
So, all the other criminal activities that you, and eBay, facilitate on we simple peasants are OK?
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”—Samuel Johnson.
eBay/PayPal/Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.
Maybe this will build up to be one of those moments where americans band together to boycott wikileaks. Prolly not though.
I agree paypal sucks. Living in Bali now, to access my Payap I have to use a VPS box with a US ip address, otherwise my US paypal account gets locked out pending re-verfication every time I log in from a local IP here. I understand the first time but after verification which takes a week things should be fine. I called and asked it they could note my account that it is ok it I use it from Bali, they say the security system is automated and “the computer won’t let them” (some of my favorite 5 words).
Furthermore I bought a few domains at Sedo recently and since Sedo can’t manage to do consolidated invoicing I had to pay for the lot of them separately (which took forever on my VPS). After the third one my paypal account got locked out again for too many transactions to the same vendor in too short a period of time. Sedo had to wait a week for the rest, just like I had to wait a week before I could even pull money out of paypal again.
Paypal is scary. I could easily imagine them locking me out long term for some stupid reason with a bunch of money in my account and me asking for it to hear “the computer won’t let them”. Funny, I’m guessing the judge can force that computer to do things that mere humans cannot.
Wikileaks has another domain: http://www.wikileaks.ch (Switzerland)
only the big banks can (if and when they want) finish the PayPal monopoly in online payments, thanks to their huge capitals and infrastructures, but, assuming they want to do it, will be easier for them to BUY the PayPal company and continue to earn the same profits, or much more
“Wikileaks has another domain:”
as said… it’s useless to try to stop it, now… it’s (several months) too late…
Lol,
The ‘Biggest Thief on the Internet’ …
“Gaypal” … CARES!
My sides are hurting from laughing …..
Kudo’s … to Dynadot.Com …
Move your domains there ….
FREEDOM BELLS STILL RING!
“Paypal is scary. I could easily imagine them locking me out long term for some stupid reason with a bunch of money in my account and me asking for it to hear “the computer won’t let them”. Funny, I’m guessing the judge can force that computer to do things that mere humans cannot….”
Your are so right about this… This is actually what I wanted to say when comparing Google to PayPal… With Google, you know what to expect 1+1=2; with PayPal, you don’t. 1+1 could = 11 if they want it to; and its all the computer’s fault.
I read stories of people with thousands of $ in their frozen PayPal accounts which they cannot access, and it takes weeks and sometimes “never” to reactivate.
I do not understand… If they care so much about security so as to make real life transactions and verifications easier than online ones, maybe they should go offline and open a bank somewhere, because their behavior defeats the purpose of why people like to do things online.
MoneyBookers to me is a much better alternative. It took me a couple of days to get my account set there, and they hold no grudge against Lebanon for some unknown purpose that they are not even willing to express. They don’t answer back silly answers like “The Computer is Saying So…” or “Lebanon doesn’t Accept Electronic Signatures…” Well, if Bali does, Lebanon sure do…
The Lebanese banking system was awarded by wall street just a few months ago for being the most free and open banking system on this side of the earth, yet for being the most immune against the economic crisis. I mean “America” exchanged expertise over bank with “Lebanon” to learn how to preserve freedom of banking without falling into economic pitfalls… Can you believe that?
And, here is PayPal answering me through one of its staff members at Ebay an answer that equals: “SriLanka and Sudan are more advanced than Lebanon…”
What is this; are they trying to rewrite history through their stupid online empire…
I’d like to offer them a map and a history book at Christmas, maybe then, they can understand what Lebanon is…
Most of the Gulf and Arab money is in Lebanese accounts. Why? Because they feel safer and secure with Lebanese banks. Their privacy and freedom are fully protected and honored. This is but a glimpse…
PayPal… “Shame on you blacklisting Lebanon for no good reason…”
Again, NO for NO Good Reason = Prejudice (period)
a possible alternative to PayPal may be the new micropayments services… but also PayPal has already planned its version…
Don’t worry… An alternative would come soon. I mean who could’ve predicted a few yrs ago what happened today to Barnes & Noble (The Book Store). The internet life is much faster, and what takes a decade in real life to happen, takes a couple of yrs online…
If more small online businesses simply start offering other alternatives to PayPal, things’ll change immediately…
Big Businesses realize that PayPal is not as Global as it claims to be, and they do offer alternatives, but not all small businesses do.
As a matter of fact, The PayPal factor is becoming a successful criterion to distinguish between truly Global businesses, and the ones still living in a bubble and who think earth’s borders end on the Mexican border with Texas…
Chadi
The problem is that the Lebanon parliament has been stalling esignature legislation since 1996. Paypal’s transaction structures are not compatible with Lebanon’s laws. While other non-US based payment processors use different arrangements, it is YOUR banks and YOUR parliament that are refusing to modernize. Paypal operates around the world in any country having compatible transactional laws, so most of your blather is uninformed and inappropriate. The US sacrificed 241 Marines in Beirut who were there to assist in keeping a truce in YOUR civil war in 1985. America has a large Lebanese community, and suggesting that we have some bias against Lebanon is absurd.
Ok… Why does MoneyBookers have no problem with Lebanon then?
Also, what relevance is Marine incident to this subject? It only projects your prejudice. Lebanon is made up of 18 different religious denominations. Some of them helped the Marines to enter, and some of them caused this massacre. Its besides the subject…
Not anytime the subject of Lebanon should be brought up, an Action script from a Charlie Sheen movie should come to picture.
At one time not so long ago, Lebanon was considered the SwitZerland of the MiddleEast before dirty international politics entered the scene.
Read the bible, and learn what Jesus Christ had to say about Lebanon instead.
We are proud to be on a Soil that Jesus walked on and praised.
Regards
I’m not suggesting America Has bias… I love America and spent half of my life in it. God and find out if PayPal represents America or its a goverment inside a government out there on its own…
probably you have also Western Union there and all banks can transfer money everywhere, then, PayPal isn’t so necessary
We have Western Union, but as I said; many online businesses have found it the easy way to make PayPal as their only venue to their online Payment Transactions.
This of course is costing them customers; not because Lebanon is huge or anything, but also because of the way they behave in general.
I hear it everywhere that many clients, out of experience, fear PayPal… They do not know when their account will get limited and for what reason.
Many people travel around the world, and they would like to have access to their account from anywhere; and they’d like to have the freedom to use it as they wish, even if 10 times to the save vendor within a few minutes. So, what?
Why should they endure having to verify their account and fax them a copy of their bank statement and and and and etc…
Its your money out there in that account, and you shouldn’t feel or be treated like a thief every time you try to access it differently…
As for Lebanon’s issue… As I said, “We’ll prevail with or without PayPal…” Its just a shame that millions of Lebanese cannot benefit from many online services because PayPal has chosen to elevate their standards to the point they clash with the Lebanese Law (which as I said is very flexible to begin with).
This brings me to The Prejudice issue… There is a saying here in Lebanon, “If you do not want your daughter to get marries, you raise the Price of the Jewelry required…” …. PayPal has something hidden against Lebanon, so they make it sound like its below their standards.
Otherwise, the Lebanese would not have been able to benefit from any online business or service, which is absurd… The Lebanese do business online on a daily basis; its just that they cannot benefit from PayPal and those who make of it the only Payment method…
“many online businesses have found it the easy way to make PayPal as their only venue”
but I’m sure that if they receive the money via Western Union they’re happy the same 🙂
Yeah… I agree… But they don’t actually. Their computer says so, and they’re not willing to change their system… I explained my problem to one of those business and offered alternative methods like WU, and you know what the answer was: “I know… That’s a pain isn’t it…”
I’m not sure anymore whose pain is it… But I guess they think to themselves: “Ok…We’re not gonna challenge our computer for this Lebanese customer…”
So what if they lose this 1 customer…
Once upon a time, a great civilization plunged into annihilation because one person was insulted… They must’ve also thought, “So, what if this one person is insulted…”
Did someone mention the “clunky” PayPal? Once merchants have been effectively defrauded a couple of times by PayPal’s hard-wired buyer-biased transaction mediation, they will drop PayPal as soon as something as convenient comes along, and I note that Amazon, after a short period of allowing payments via PayPal, no longer does so. What does that tell us about the clunky PayPal system?
Draft Media Release re PayPal
“It is with great sadness that eBay’s Chief Headless Turkey, John Donahoe, announces the probable demise of eBay’s most ugly daughter, PayPal. Donahoe says that PayPal is likely to be stricken by particularly virulent strains of Visa+CyberSource and Mastercard Open Platform, and these afflictions are greatly aggravated by PayPal’s insurmountable lack of direct financial institutions support and a great deal of PayPal merchant dissatisfaction, particularly with respect to PayPal’s grossly unfair, “all responsibility avoiding” user agreement, primitive risk management processes, and grossly unprofessional, buyer-biased and fraud-facilitating (indeed, apparently non existent) transactions mediation, to name just a few of the problems that PayPal merchants have to endure.
“Donahoe says that PayPal’s health may therefore be expected to deteriorate and, if ultimately not completely incapacitated, will most likely be eventually confined to its mandatory offering on what little there will be, by then, left of the Donahoe-devastated eBay marketplaces. There is no cure for this condition, and the “eBafia Don” is particularly saddened by the inevitable presumption that it is unlikely that PayPal, will be able to continue to underpin eBay’s sagging bottom line too far into the future.”
Yes, it’s a send-up but, still, it accurately describes PayPal’s unregulated, most unprofessional and “clunky” operation. The fact is, had the developers of the original “bankcard” concept ever behaved the way PayPal behaves towards its payees in particular, credit/debit cards may never have gotten off the ground, and we would probably still be paying for all our purchases with bits of paper and little metal discs.
It should also be emphasized that all the payments processors that do not have the direct underlying risk-managing and real transaction mediation support of the financial institutions that are ultimately involved in the transaction, as does the likes of Visa/Mastercard, suffer the same handicaps that PayPal suffers. The “banks” may be disliked by some but they at least supply a “professional” payments processing service.
Any merchant thinking of voluntarily offering PayPal would be wise to first peruse the very many PayPal merchant horror stories that abound on the internet. A detailed examination of and prognosis for PayPal, (including a link to the “PayPal Horror Tour”) at:
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=23309
Shill Bidding on eBay: Case Study #4
This latest study provides an indication of eBay’s desperation to mitigate lessening sales activity and very effectively demonstrates eBay’s effective aiding and abetting of criminal shill bidding “wire fraud” activity by unscrupulous professional sellers on unsuspecting buyers:
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=23540
eBay/PayPal/Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.
Amen…
@Chadi
It’s a business decision on PayPal’s and Moneybooker’s parts. If PayPal’s experiences with Lebanon haven’t been good, then they pretty much have little to no incentive to do business there.
Whereas if Moneybookers hasn’t experienced any significant issues doing business with Lebanon-based users, then good for them and good for you. It’s not necessarily that PayPal is “biased” against Lebanese, but those based from your country.
Search around and you’ll find all kinds of users…Lebanese, Iraqi, even Filipinos (whose country was once banned by PayPal also but eventually allowed back) who are able to use PayPal. They happen to be in countries that PayPal does business with, though.
Personally, I just think it’s lame as a frequent world traveler, currently livin in Bali, etc…. That I cannot Accra my paypal acct which is a US paypal account with a US login and password. Common folks this is the Internet and almost 2011. It’s not like I’m trying to create new account with an Indonesian address. It’s still me, jus somewhere else
sounds like some people don’t like paypal.
the guys behind paypal are known as the “paypal mafia”. search that term to pull up some articles.
one of these “brilliant entrepreneurs”, now running his own vc firm aimed at internet hype companies, happens to be the guy who gave facebook their intial funding. this was long before microsoft, by giving facebook a billion dollar amount of funding, thereby made its founder one of the world’s youngest billionaires.
as for paypal cutting off wikileaks, according to wikipedia, this has happened to wikileaks before. but paypal eventually reactivated the account. i’m not sure what to make of that but i agree with mhb- i don’t understand why they’re not cutting off all domains within us-based registries, such as .info
the .info site makes it very easy to access the cables, without dns, and instructs people on how to securely submit stuff to wikileaks.
according to wikipedia, wikileaks’ facebook page was pulled, but then reinstated. and it now has over 770,000 friends? is that true? should facebook deactivate the wikileaks page? what about twitter? should they deactivate wikileaks’ twitter page?
keep in mind the people running these sites are not journalists any more than the people running wikileaks are journalists.
“It’s a business decision on PayPal’s and Moneybooker’s parts. If PayPal’s experiences with Lebanon haven’t been good, then they pretty much have little to no incentive to do business there.”
They never tried to begin with. Plus, I don’t mean this in any rude way…; but, its an insult for PayPal to like doing business with Somalia, SriLanka and Sudan, yet not Lebanon. I mean we’re talking here at the only Democratic country on this side of the earth. The only country that elect a president for 4 yrs only, the only Arab country in the world whose president is Christian.
Maybe you can say that PayPal is practicing pressure on Lebanon for unknown reason which I can’t think of one but a Political one…
They should be called PayFoe…