Personally, I've been happy enough with Paypal and find it a useful service. It is reasonable to speak out against Paypal if we know for a fact it is terminating accounts arbitrarily for political activities. Here, however, we don't know enough about the details of the situation, and I'll give Paypal/eBay the benefit of the doubt for now. If the details suggest otherwise or this becomes a pattern, then I'll change my mind. Previous Politech message: "Paypal deletes account of independent news site, gives no reason" http://www.politechbot.com/p-04548.html -Declan --- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 11:26:32 -0800 From: rabbleat_private To: declanat_private Cc: politechat_private, customercareat_private Subject: Re: FC: Paypal deletes account of independent news site, gives no reason As the person who had been handling the pay pal account for indymedia i have to say we aren't to happy with pay pal. They haven't turned our accounts off for political reasons, but we've had to jump through their fraud hoops several times including have to fake the existance of a president of indymedia to get our accounts reactivated. We have been considering switching, but the trouble is to what, pay pal has unfortunately been by far the easist system to setup. Affero is very attractive becuase it allows donars to specify which project they want their money to go to, and allows the building up of reputations. The real reason we are thinking of switching is because we don't want to have our donar database handed over to the US government for their war on diss^H^H^H terrorism. There's a good legal case history of protecting the membership lists of political organizations in the US although that my be changing with the Patriot Act and Son of Patriot Act. Anyway i'd recommend that any groups doing vaugely political work stay away from pay pal. It's like a bad addictive drug, the switching process may be a little painful but you're a whole lot healthier without it. in solidarity, evan --- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 15:23:54 -0500 (EST) From: Tommyc <tommycat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Paypal deletes account of independent news site, gives no reason Citibank's c2it is free, and easy enough once you get registered. --- To: declanat_private Subject: Re: FC: Paypal deletes account of independent news site, gives no reason From: corbetat_private (Jonathan Corbet) In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 13 Mar 2003 01:24:39 EST." <5.1.1.6.0.20030313011330.01667bf0at_private> Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 13:33:16 -0700 [Really about credit card accounts - perhaps getting a bit peripheral to the main issue...] > It would be useful if members of the forum might be able to suggest > other alternatives. We have been advised by one person to open > our own Visa Merchant account but are very reluctant to do so. It's worth mentioning that merchant accounts are not necessarily a lot safer. When LWN.net decided that it was time to give up and shut down, our readers responded with over $30K in donations, mostly with credit cards. Our merchant bank decided they didn't like that, *extracted the donation money back out of our checking account*, and held onto it for months. Among other things, they didn't like the high proportion of non-US cards used, and they *really* didn't like the merchant account being used for donations. It took us a long time to straighten out that one, and nearly killed the business. Now we have a new merchant bank, and we keep the bulk of our funds in a different account that they don't know about. We've also moved away from the donation model. Things are better now, but I've learned that merchant banks, too, can turn hostile and screw you over on a moment's notice. jon Jonathan Corbet Executive editor, LWN.net corbetat_private --- Reply-To: "J.C." <janconklinat_private> From: "J.C." <janconklinat_private> To: <declanat_private> References: <5.1.1.6.0.20030313011330.01667bf0at_private> Subject: Re: Paypal deletes account of independent news site, gives no reason Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 16:00:19 -0700 It reeks of political censorship that PayPal should decide it is the internet finance cop and selectively grab some accounts and not others - but it's not really a surprise. Since eBay bought PayPal, and eBay is certainly posturing itself as the New Corporate Billionaire On The Block politico (taking such liberties as readily giving up its customers' information to "law enforcement" without subpoena, per Politech) BOTH entities seem to be acting unlike businesses and more like the small-town-mayor running for US Congress, willing to lick any powerful entity's boots to get there. I am mystified by the annoying eBay commercials on television, and moreso at its constant telemarketing lately (disregarding the Colorado "No-Call" List, yet). I hope PayPal recovers part of its senses, or I'm going to be forced to do business with one of Those Other Internet banking ventures. Best regards, Jan Conklin --- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 11:06:37 -0700 To: declanat_private From: Charles Oriez <coriezat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Paypal deletes account of independent news site, gives no reason 501(C)3 non profits can use Network For Good. http://denveraitp.org funnels scholarship money through them. Sierra Club Rocky Mountain Chapter http://rmc.sierraclub.org uses http://processing.net with good results. If you are a 501(C)4 or C(3) they will waive processing fees provided they can donate them to your selected (C)3 arm, although you still have to pay your bank's merchant account fees. Feel free to share. Charles Oriez coriezat_private 39 34' 34.4"N / 105 00' 06.3"W --- From: saksfiat_private X-WebTV-Signature: 1 ETAtAhUAn4EDQynDVfQ/M0k2y8OMgcdAFuwCFBT4SI8RBUf0sXp1WsE86h0dvsXd Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 16:23:01 -0800 (PST) To: declanat_private Subject: Re: Delete my e-dress if used please. FC: Paypal deletes account One should be aware that Paypal recently was purchased by Ebay and Ebay turns over to the Federal government ALL information they have of their sellers and buyers, almost volunteering the info without being asked legally. So political use to target and eliminate contrary sites to the "group think" of this current administration would not be surprising ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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