PayPal users close accounts after Cryptome attack
- 14 March, 2010 11:14
- Comments 1
PayPal users have reacted angrily to the suspension of Cryptome's account by the e-payment company and are using Cryptome's website to display their emails, cancelling their PayPal accounts.
Although PayPal has now restored Cryptome's account, it was suspended for several days following Microsoft's action against the whistle-blowing site and the temporary shutdown of Cryptome by its hosting company.
Faced with criticism over its heavy-handed approach, Microsoft claimed afterwards that it had not wished Cryptome to be shut down.
"While Microsoft has a good faith belief that the distribution of the file that was made available at that address infringes Microsoft's copyrights, it was not Microsoft's intention that the takedown request result in the disablement of web access to the entire cryptome.org website on which the file was made available," said the company's counsel, Evan Cox.
But while the Cryptome was quickly back up, the freezing of the PayPal account took over a week to be restored. According to a story in The Register, the freezing of the account had been because "PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy clearly states that we don't allow PayPal to be used for items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity."
However, in an increasingly tetchy email conversation with "Stephanie" from PayPal, Cryptome's John Young pointed out that nothing that Cryptome does is illegal, otherwise it would have been shut down by the authorities.
The spat has not gone down well with PayPal users, several of whom have posted their dissatisfaction with the service on the Cryptome website. One user, A5 wrote, " I will be closing my PayPal account, as well. My reasons for taking such action is simply that I wish to express my objections to the gross lack of openness, fair play, and responsibility demonstrated by the mishandling of the situation that cropped up with Cryptome".
It remains to be seen whether many more of PayPal's users follow suit.
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Comments
Mustard
Personal experience from a normally passive reader: I almost had a heart attack dealing with the imbeciles at Paypal few months ago. As a long time user of Paypal with excelllent track record, they locked up my account just when I was desperately in need of the items I purchased via ebay. I wrote in to inquire and got ridiculously long email explanations that essentially say they have no idea why it happened to
me and that I should just try my luck again a few days later to see if it works. WTF. All the while aknowledging that I have an excellent track record and everything was in order. The paypal folks (they kept passing me on to another colleague as they couldn't give a proper explanation) basically told me they couldn't do anything regarding the problem they caused to begin with. I gave up after talking to 3 imbeciles who repeated the same thing to me on 3 occasions. I lost the auction even though I was the winning bid. And they had the audacity to suspend the seller's account too! ARRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH First class service!
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