PayPal VP On Blocking WikiLeaks: ?State Department Told Us It Was Illegal? PayPal: Decision to Drop Wikileaks Was "Straightforward" Over the weekend, PayPal announced that it would no longer handle donations to whistleblower site Wikileaks. In a late night statement, the company said that the site had violated its terms of service and the account would be immediately shut down. Now, Osama Bedier, Paypal's VP of Platform, has told the audience at LeWeb 2010 that the controversial decision was straightforward.
According to PayPal's original statement, Wikileaks was shut down "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. " WikiLeaks Coverage From ReadWriteWeb: Mashable's Ben Parr reports that Bedier was pressed for an explanation on stage and responded by describing the process PayPal takes for things like this. The acceptable use policy group had to address Julian Assange and WikiLeaks when the U.S. Wikileaks' IT firm threatens to sue Visa and Mastercard. 8 December 2010Last updated at 18:02 PayPal's Osama Bedier: "Our policy group had to make the decision of suspending the account" PayPal has said that its decision to stop people from using its service to make donations to Wikileaks was made after a letter from the US government.
A vice-president at the online payments firm said the State Department had said that the activities of the website were illegal in the US. PayPal suspended payments to Wikileaks last week, and has been followed by Visa Europe and Mastercard. Amazon and Swiss bank PostFinance have also cut ties with Wikileaks. PayPal's vice-president Osama Bedier told a conference that the company's acceptable use policy group had decided to suspend Wikileaks' account after the State Department sent a letter on 27 November, adding that it was a "straightforward" decision. A State Department official also said the government department had not contacted Paypal. Legal threat He was refused bail, but has vowed to fight extradition. PayPal admits US pressure over WikiLeaks account freeze | Media.
The websites of the international credit card MasterCard and the Swedish prosecution authority are among the latest to be taken offline in the escalating technological battle over WikiLeaks, web censorship and perceived political pressure. Co-ordinated attacks by online activists who support the site and its founder Julian Assange – who is in UK custody accused of raping two Swedish women – have seen the websites of the alleged victims' Swedish lawyer disabled, while commercial and political targets have also been subject to attack by a loose coalition of global hackers. The Swedish prosecution authority has confirmed its website was attacked last night and this morning. MasterCard was partially paralysed today in revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks. Attempts to access www.mastercard.com have been unsuccessful since shortly after 9.30am.
"Twitter, you're next for censoring #WikiLeaks discussion. The major shitstorm has begun," it added. How to Cancel or Close your Pay Pal Account. PayPal blog: Updated Statement about WikiLeaks from PayPal General Counsel, John Muller. Caving to pressure from supporters, PayPal releases WikiLeaks’ funds. UPDATE: As of 12:10am PST on December 9, Paypal.com is widely unreachable according to our own checks and numerous reports on Twitter. We have more information about the attacks here. UPDATE: PayPal, hours after being unreachable, is back online and can be reached following the previously reported downtime. In a reversal of course, PayPal has released funds remaining in an account associated with WikiLeaks according to a post on PayPal’s blog. Last week, a statement from PayPal indicated, the company had suspended the account following claims by the U.S. that the activities of WikiLeaks violated the law. According to the report, PayPal acted of their own volition, without being contacted by any government agency.
Now it appears attacks from the supporters of WikiLeaks have caused PayPal to re-think their position. From the PayPal blog post: Release of the funds come after a slew of denial-of-service (DOS) attacks earlier this week aimed at WikiLeaks’ providers. What are your thoughts? PayPal. PayPal's corporate headquarters in San Jose, California eBay, PayPal, Kijiji, and StubHub in Toronto PayPal is an international e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders.
It is subject to the US economic sanction list, and subject to other rules and interventions required by US laws or government. PayPal is an acquirer, performing payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. The fee depends on what currency or payments the seller is using.[4] In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies. History[edit] Beginnings[edit] eBay acquisition[edit] Corporate governance[edit] Services[edit] PayPal Operations Center and main office located in Omaha, NE Phase-1[edit] Phase-2[edit]