There has been a disturbing development in which PayPal seems to be threatening to withdrawn its services from blogs which violate their acceptable use policy. Fair enough on the face of it, as it is certainly PayPal’s right to offer to do business on whatever terms they wish.
But then take a look at what those terms are:
The Policy prohibits the use of PayPal in the sale of items or in support of organizations that promote hate, violence, or racial intolerance; items which graphically portray violence or victims of violence; or items closely associated with individuals notorious for committing murderous acts within the last 100 years.
So… write about or show pictures of the victims of a terrorist atrocity, or show pictures of Osama bin Laden and suddenly no more PayPal for you, as Bill Quick of Daily Pundit has found out.
They do not want to do business with Bill Quick? Well I am not so sure I want to continue to do business with PayPal then. Clearly Samizdata.net is going to have to review whether or not we will continue to have those PayPal buttons you see at the moment in our sidebar.
Instaman links to this story:
I guess that Paypal feel that they have sound commercial reasons for doing this, but I have to say that I’m concerned about what they are doing. Care to imagine your bank issuing you with a fine because you’d bought adult material?
I have never done one penny of trade through PayPal, because I always thought the name was sinister.
It always sounded like Big Brother to me. PayPal is your friend. We can tell you how to think along the lines we have decided in order to feel good about yourself.
The name was the giveaway.
I have not been a fan of PayPal for quite some time. Their conflict resolution system has damaged quite a few people I know, and their business practices, as documented on sites like paypalsucks.com, have left a lot of people out in the lurch.
I’m actually kind of glad to see this kind of move by them, if only for reasons of spite. I think it’s a giant mistake, and I hope to see competitors rise to overtake them.
It has also always had some odd characteristics considered as a settlement or banking system too. As far as I can see you have never got cleared funds from PayPal, merely a conditional credit. If you want a sound method of settlement with minimal formality, you are better off with hawala.
(Tho’ taxers-regulators are trying desperately to stamp that out using terrorism as the excuse… Subversive thought: hawala could be done on-line with digital signatures. Maybe it already is. If so, it could take off in the West.)
Well, not only is PayPal expensive, it is now limiting its users/customers. This is an invitation for competition – where are the alternatives to PayPal?
Always found Worldpay to be a far superior system anyway and, being part of Natwest/RBS, they don’t care where the money comes from …
JT,
You must be on the promo team for Natwest… sounds more like ‘from the frying pan into the fire’ to me, and overpriced at that… lovely people, but totally incompetent.
I find it incredible that anyone who read PayPal’s terms and conditions would ever have had anything to do with them.
And, yes, people I know who have tried to used Worldpay have reported exactly the same as Ernest Young has suggested.
Incompetent? NatWest? Never!
From section 8 of the first article of our esteemed Constitution…
The Congress shall have Power to …. coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
I’m not a big fan of government, but it seems to me that a key job of the U.S. government is to mint money. couldn’t an “e-nickel” be produced by the government? i’m envisioning something that would have the features of cash:
-unique serial number
-no commisions on the transfer of $ (unlike paypal, etc.)
-can be handed over anonymously
obvisouly there are some technological hurdles, such as how do you avoid conterfeiting. maybe some sort of huge encrypted serial number unique to every e-coin, whose authenticity can be checked against a gov’t website.
think about the possibilities this would open up… a simple nickel donation from occasion visitors, no personal info to be swiped when doing online transactions, and best of all any paypal-esque, big-brother shit would have to clear the hurdles of the bill of rights unlike a large company that is prone to suffer from delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness when approaching a dominant market status
any thoughts?
E-gold (http://e-gold.com) and GoldMoney (http://goldmoney.com) – the payment systems best suited to libertarian use!
PayPal is owned by the eBay empire who censor much merchandice on their auction sites and if you think I am joking for all those outside the US try buying items that pertain to German history for the most part of the 20th century.
The sooner the Blogosphere gets away from PayPal the better.
To be fair to eBay, the censorship of goods has been forced on them by governments (the German government, in relation to anything to do with the Nazis and their precursors), and the cause for complaint of the original posting probably arises the same way: regulatory bullying. Being a global company, they cannot be seen to permit uses of their system that are illegal anywhere they need to have a local office–a pretty restrictive criterion. The net, in delocalising commerce, does not necessarily free us from state control, as cyberlibertarians once supposed it might.
As I’ve mentioned on Bill’ site, PayPal has got a terrible reputation among independent software developers, as a payment processor.
And while they have every right to decide who they want as customers, many of their customers haven’t, to this point, been properly appraised of PayPal alternatives. That, I’m sure, will change quickly…
-M
From reading Daily Pundit I would say they are but a longer winded form of LGF. They preach division and hatred not only for Muslims but for other Americans, Europeans, and anyone who doesn’t see the world view in their way. Quick’s site is filled to the brim with yes people who live for nothing but agreeing with everything he says and possibly garnering a linkage on his wonderful blog.
If you choose to quit working for Pay Pal because they don’t support hateful rhetoric then do so. If you believe they are unfairly targeting right wing blogs point it out by showing which left wing blogs are still being served by Pay Pal and see what transpires.
IXLNXS – PayPal service Democratic Underground – one can’t really find a more hate-filled and bigoted place.
And to tell people about what Muslim fanatics do is not to “preach division and hatred”. The fanatics are doing that for themselves.