PayPal Suspends WikiLeaks Account | Hacker News Reader

PayPal Suspends WikiLeaks Account

thelede.blogs.nytimes.com

99 pointsmalte73 comments

I just closed my PayPal account because of this.

Here is a direct Link if you want to do it yourself. https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_close-account

Already done when I first heard about it.

The link is useful though; I ended up using one from a different source because I couldn't figure out at all how to close my account

I'd just donated to Wikileaks and PayPal wont let me close my account until next week when it's cleared. I hope they actually see the money :o

Thanks. The direct link was the difference between me closing it right now, and me saying "I'm going to," and then forgetting.

I just closed my account, sent them and email, and retweeted the link. Thanks for putting it there?

I can't close my PayPal account yet (although I will be encouraging my European customers to move to Moneybookers), but ... there's no way to email them about their own corporate actions. Does anybody know of an email address that I can just address with a complaint? Although a paper letter with a real stamp may get their attention more effectively...

Moneybookers already blocked Wikileaks. Sorry :(

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/14/wikileaks-says-f...

Well, damn.

Gotta give props to wikileaks for opening the eyes of many to the type of country they live in.

Paypal also took the account of the Wau Holland Stiftung because they collect money for wikileaks.

PayPal told us we are "in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy regarding (...) financial support to Wikileaks" and took our account. http://twitter.com/#!/wauland/status/10987193778569216

The next stop would be check their database for all account that ever sent money to Wikileaks or the Wau Holland Stiftung and close those too. And then the ones who ever send money to those.

PayPal went over board with this, as the Wau Holland Foundation just gave money to Wikileaks for a specific purpose holding them accountable for any spendings. It is impossible to argue that the money from the foundation was used for any illegal/criminal activity.

I donated and have written Paypal to ask for clarification on why the account was closed and what their policy is for returning the money or seeing it through to the intended recipient, etc.

Hopefully others who donated will do this as well so that there are at least some customer service costs associated with this. As you mention, there doesn't seem to be much if any illegality about the activities that I can spot, and fair use for political speech covers the rest.

I just donated via Paypal yesterday. Guess I'll donate again, but via credit card, today.

that's what I did as well. Plus I cancelled my PayPal account.

So did I. I wonder if wikileaks will still get that money.

Where exactly will that money go??

As usual, probably collecting interest for paypal. I made a formal complaint demanding it back. If they don't reply timely I'm deleting my account.

Being frustrated with PayPal's poor support, but pleased with its ubiquity, this was an lost opportunity for PayPal to earn my goodwill. I, for one, am advocating against paypal from now on.

I am reading a lot of boycott statement against Paypal in the comments – and I fully understand – but guys... where have you been when Amazon refused to host Wikileaks? And what about EasyDNS?

Paypal is a company doing business and I dislike them as much as you do but please don't forget that Government >> Company. Always.

Isn't that the very problem Wikileaks is showcasing here?

FYI: EasyDNS had nothing to do with this, it was a misprint by some online journalists.

Source: http://blog.easydns.org/2010/12/03/wikileaks-takedown-fiasco...

s/EasyDNS/EveryDNS/

Please don't confuse the two because of shoddy reporting! EasyDNS is being dragged through the mud unfairly...

I closed my Amazon account too.

Amazon is much harder for me to move away from than PayPal. with PayPal, I just transfer my money out and click the cancel button.

With Amazon, I have to re-do my entire deployment setup, since Heroku has made it so freaking easy. Not to mention migrate all of my addon accounts too... significantly more complicated.

I'll still do it, it just won't happen today.

I have the same problem with PayPal. 70% of my income comes from Europe through PayPal. I'm seriously considering moving to Moneybookers, though, for my European customers. This really stinks.

Have you legally donated money via paypal that has been frozen? Perhaps if you had you would be quite disgusted!!

A lot of corporations are coming out against Wikileaks, and I don't feel the same way. What are they considering that I'm not

They're considering how uncomfortable it is to have their arms twisted.

Letting PayPal keep all Wikileaks' donation money for themselves is not exactly something that requires that much arm-twisting. They've done it before, and now they have a scapegoat.

yeah, what's the story with that? Shouldn't the money either be given to Wikileaks (unlikely) or returned the the donor? In what sort of world can the middle man cut one side of a deal out, and keep the money?

Exactly. Who's the criminal in this picture?

PayPal!

Ah, but their existence bore YouTube, and without YouTube, where would we be then?

What did Mark Cuban ever do for you?

WikiLeaks. They stole documents and they are publishing them without the consent of the owners. The fact that this owner is the government is irrelevant.

How would you feel if it were your personal emails that were published on a public web site like this?

Just on the off-chance that you are serious: it is of the utmost importance that the owner is a government, not a private person. The argument is that the government is keeping secrets from its people without the people being able to change that by normal means.

You are also incorrect about Wikileaks stealing any documents. They are only publishing.

Well, that's the point. They don't want you considering their secrets.

WikiLeaks is violating the terms of service of most of the companies they are trying to use, so their accounts get shut down.

This has nothing to do with censorship nor giving in to political pressure, stop seeing conspiracies everywhere.

Huge marketing opportunity for WePay! (and also a huge opportunity to do the right thing)

Are WePay being used by Wikileaks?

How will WePay as a US company offer any real guarantee not to do the same?

Can WePay make any commitment or guarantee given that they are integrated into a system and other entities (i.e. Visa, Mastercard, etc) could pull their plug over this?

I'm really just curious. If WePay honestly will do the right thing and treat money as money regardless of how people choose to spend it (the whole thing here... porn, politics, etc) and to do so with a real guarantee that means this can never happen, then I just do not see how this is any opportunity for them.

And how will WePay's board like this idea?

There's a mistake in this article: Wikileaks DNS wasn't provided by EasyDNS, but by EveryDNS.

Considering PayPal is actually a real bank in many countries, can they really discriminate like this without a proper legal process first?

Paypal suspends my account at least once a month just because I sometimes use a different IP when logging in, I'm honestly shocked they didn't do this to Wikileaks earlier.

They did: http://slashdot.org/story/10/01/23/2138204/PayPal-Freezes-th...

According to wikileaks you can still donate by credit card via https://donations.datacell.com. I'm not clear if the processor is based in Iceland or Switzerland.

Since when can what Wikileaks does be considered criminal activity? I'd think that it's at least not clear cut enough that companies would wait for some kind of conviction before labeling it all illegal/criminal activity.

Er, PayPal has only ever needed vague suspicion to close an account and keep the money.

TBH, I was amazed they didn't pull the plug sooner, considering all the negativity surrounding paypal. I haven't had any issues with paypal myself, but reading all the stories from other people having issues with them... I don't know, I would really REALLY like to have an alternative somewhere, but sadly there isn't one.

Usually, PayPal is "evil" because of false positives on fraud. They'd know that an account for an organization like WikiLeaks is legit.

There is a YC-company alternative: https://www.wepay.com/

I'm sorry, I meant paypal alternative for payments and money transfers through internet, not as a collection/donation service for groups. Sad fact is that nothing is as widespread as paypal. And even paypal doesn't have an option to receive money here (Croatia) because national bank (governs bank policies among other things) wants them to be regulated like other banks here, so they're "talking about it".

To me, it sounds like a pretty obvious route for a startup disruption opportunity. I guess bar is set too high (financially and logistically) for a small-ish startup to make a significant entry to that market (global). There are compatible businesses that could make a significant entry/impact, but they didn't do it (Western Union, Moneybookers, Google Checkout, Amazon...) - I always wondered why (if we choose to ignore the stronghold of ebay paypal has behind it).

What, you're not just a group of one? ;) But yeah, dunno about Croatia...

The bar is extremely high, mostly due to fraud, from what I understand. We only hear about false positives, but it's a huge problem.

wepay and paypal would face the same issues of false positive on fraud. The only thing that could help would be the day all banks implements OpenTransact which is basically OAuth for payment http://www.opentransact.org/ with no intermediary between banks, maybe one day... I know Banksimple said they would implement it.

Well, I hope all this does not come as a surprise to Wikileaks.

They are essentially screwing the US government, and using services (Paypal, Amazon etc.) which are incorporated in the US, and operates under the US regulations.

And so, we begin to see the far-fetched narrative of Sandra Bullocks 'The Net' start to swing into full effect.

Who'd have thought it would become so prescient ...

I'm surprised PayPal didn't "bend over" sooner on this one. No more will I use PayPal.

Please don't blame PayPal that much. If you have been in their situation, you'll very likely do the same. So if you have any issues, go and blame the US gov.

er, no. I blame PayPal fully.

While PayPal deserves the negative rep for screwing their customers, it doesn't deserve it for being a US corporation, vulnerable to the US government. The bad guy here is not PayPal.

Paypal is helping and aiding the bad guy. So what does that make them?? Minions ?? An image : http://milhaud.tumblr.com/post/2091089035/julian-assange-es-...

Can PayPal really afford to say no? The government has many ways it can make life miserable for the company.

Isn't that the VERY PROBLEM Wikileaks is showcasing here?

It's a problem that a company has to obey the laws of the country it resides in?

It's a problem that the laws are such that obeying them or being considered ethical by one's customers is a double-bind.

It's even more a problem that the law isn't even on the government's side here...

They'll change the law, as always. That's why they wanted to include Wikileaks as a terrorist org. All the way clean for them.

What laws, in particular, did you have in mind? Wikileaks has not, to the best of my knowledge, been charged with any violation of law in the United States (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Much less did Amazon or PayPal violate any law.

I don't see anyone suggesting Amazon or PayPal violated any laws in this discussion, but maybe I missed it. I certainly haven't made such a suggestion.

That was my impression of silverstorm's comment - that PayPal has to comply with US law and thus shouldn't be denigrated for this decision. Not even Wikileaks has been shown to have violated US law, but my point was that Yahoo and PayPal can't even rely on the fact that they have to comply with US law, because they haven't violated it at all.

Well. They may have now - PayPal in particular could be accused of fraud for freezing an account unless they release the funds relatively quickly. This might even have the kind of visibility that would result in that kind of good outcome.

Wikileaks really is shining light on a lot of roaches this week...

Is this a serious post? The government can exact capricious petty revenge on your business, so it's not the business's fault for exercising cowardice?

It would be unbelievably easy to rightfully Godwin your perspective on this issue, but I won't do it.

The United States is a nation predicated on a set of inviolate rights that are supposedly protected by the charter document of the nation itself. Among these rights are the right to hold property, conduct affairs freely, and speak freely. The courts have repeatedly defined rights that are derivative of our constitutionally-protected ones, and that among these are the ability to conduct business free from the threat of arbitrary governmental coercion( e.g. absent of a "chilling effect" ), with obvious exceptions made where the business has committed a crime.

PayPal, Amazon, et. al. Have not broken the law by providing services to Wikileaks, and are, therefore, not in danger of retribution by the government specified in the US Constitution. The salient point here may be that the government we have is possibly NOT the government specified by the US Constitution, and these companies ARE in danger of capricious revenge by the government. And if this is the case, we as a nation are living under the thumb of a truly illegitimate government - and we have bigger issues to worry about than the cowardice of companies.

But whether or not we exist in a nation of arbitrarily exacted State power, nothing changes the fact that Amazon and PayPal are corporate cowards, in the absence of an actual, honest-to-god court order. To say they should be held harmless is, well, an "interesting" perspective.

>PayPal, Amazon, et. al. Have not broken the law by providing services to Wikileaks

I would be surprised if it's not illegal to aid in the dissemination of classified material. Nevertheless, its certainly illegal to aid an abet terrorists. Seeing as the government owns the monopoly on defining who is a terrorist, it's not a stretch at all to see there might be actual legal consequences down the road for these companies.

This may not be "right", but this isn't Amazon's or Paypal's fight to have. I don't blame them one bit. This is Wikileak's problem to deal with--It comes with the territory.

No, the legal ramifications only come into play when the government officially declares something a terrorist organization. In the USA, this would be done by the State Department, which has yet to issue such a proclamation. All this folding by American companies until Wikileaks is actually branded such is (depending on your POV) pure cowardice or generous cooperation with the present interests of government.

Nope. While they may have a case against the original leaker, once it's out, classified information is out in the United States (not so in the UK, with the Official Secrets Act) and further disclosure is at least nominally protected by the Constitution.

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