PayPal restores Cryptome for real PayPal has finally made good on its pledge to restore Cryptome's account many hours after the firm's head of global communications told Register readers it had already done so. PayPal told operator John Young the account had been suspended because of its stated policy: Cryptome welcomes documents for publication that are …
So in effect PayPal are acting on their behalf of governments, out of their own fear of government rules and laws. I don't trust PayPal but Cryptome has some powerful enemies so I wonder if some of these powerful groups have spoken to PayPal to make it in their best interests to act against Cryptome.
The thing is society and the law is simply setup to punish decent against our ruling elite which is the way they want it. They want to make everyone afraid to speak out, even if that is done via leaking their damaging documents to show what they are doing behind our backs.
After all, Cryptome is in effect speaking out against the actions of both businesses and governments by leaking their damaging documents showing how they work against society in various ways for their own gain. (e.g. Spying documents and underhanded business practices etc..). Therefore Cryptome has some very powerful enemies.
What I also find interesting is how its all done without any legal action being required. We are getting ever more examples of this, where the companies rules, regulations (and wishes) are being used as a substitute for the law. Also as they bypass the law they also bypass the need for courts (or even the need for proof of wrong doing) as the companies make up their own mind as they go along. So you are guilty if they decide you are guilty and then they punish you however they like, to make you life more difficult. Its also interesting how the governments stand by and just watch and do and say nothing against it.
15 years ago I told a friend that Capitalism is the new communism - out-sourced.
It truly is.
Government (especially communist and socialist) will rarely be as effective at oppression as can occur in a free market when profits and bonuses are at stake.
I note that commercial oppression doesn't violate the US constitution either, which is convenient - for the US must remain the model of freedom
Sam
I'm not 100% sure whether PayPal is or isn't classified as a bank, but I believe it is so in the EU but not in the US.
If indeed PayPal does have a banking license, then I don't think any bank can really do very much with your account, least of all deny you access to your money. I assume they could cease to do business with you, but only after refunding your entire monies back. PayPal failed to do this, and I believe you'll find that they are simply not allowed to freeze assets without a court order authorising them to do so.
PayPal aren't a bank; it's just a service where you can pay real money to modify some numbers on a website and, at a future date, you *MAY* be allowed to turn those imaginary numbers back into real money, but there's no guarantee of that (nor regulation) whatsoever.
There are lot of four-letter words you could call PayPal but "bank" isn't one of them.
PayPal is NOT a bank, at least not in the US. They walk like a bank, talk like a bank, and act like a bank in many ways. But, they have gone to great lengths to make sure that, legally, they are NOT a bank. That's how they can pull crap like this. They aren't subject to the same regulations and supervision that banks are.
They want you to think they're a bank, and to use them to store your money like a bank. But, PayPal puts your money into their (real) bank account and they get the interest from it. They charge you a fee every time money moves to your account from someone else's.
This would be the equivalent of your bank charging you a variable (depending on the amount) fee for each check you deposit. Such a bank would not stay in business very long. The only reason PayPal can pull this off is becuase they have become the de-facto standard for online payments.
Somewhere in the universe, Paypal is right now running away with the award for Biggest Douche in the Universe (yes, even beating out John Edward).
It is impressive and noteworthy that, even in trying to fix things, they worked hard enough to somehow find a way to fuck that up too.
"Unfortunately, it's not illegal to be a jerk."
No, that's very, very fortunate. Whoever gets to define "jerk" shouldn't also be allowed to silence anyone falling into that category. Examples of some quite interesting jerks: Ghandi, MLK, his name brother ML, JC, the Big M, Siddhārtha Gautama... Find your own examples, I'm sure you can think of some.
Who leaves money in Paypal?
The second you transfer some money to me it's going into my real bank.
In fact, it would be easier all round if you'd just transfer the money into my real bank and bypass Paypal altogether. Especially if I was going to publish some paperwork on Paypal, what did they really think might happen?
PayPal is an unregulated, unprincipled, systemically dysfunctional, amateur organization (just like its ugly mother, eBay).
PayPal and Bill Me Later are not a bank, are not regulated as banks are and yet offer banking-type services, services that would be more appropriately and more competently carried out under the auspices of the banking community (via their credit card company partners).
The simple fact is that without the bankers’ knowledge of the entities involved in the transactions, PayPal, or any other non-bank provider, will always be handicapped. Non-bank providers will never guarantee anything for the buyer or seller because they simply don’t have the bankers’ knowledge of the entities involved.
The head turkey at eBay, ‘Noise’ Donahoe, has talked of the possibility of offloading PayPal because he is just barely smart enough to know that when the major credit card companies do get off their butts and introduce a like card/terminal-less payments system to complement their credit card system, they will do it properly, and the dysfunctional PayPal will then sink like a stone—other than, possibly, on what is by then left of the Donahoe-shrinking eBay marketplace. Possibly, the banks may let PayPal keep those ‘no hoper’ customers that the banks, who will always better ‘know’ the entities involved, might not likely allow a merchant-type facility.
If Donahoe has any brain at all he will be actively trying to sell PayPal to the banks to complement their credit card system; but I doubt the banks would want to lower their image any further by associating themselves with the likes of PayPal; not even for a peppercorn consideration would the banks touch such an incompetent amateur operation as PayPal, I suspect.
Does anyone then think that ‘all the banks’ are not watching this market segment with interest, and is it possible that PayPal could be having some negative effect on their credit card business? Why then would ‘the banks’ not be considering a like system to complement their existing card systems? The simple fact is that anything that PayPal can do ‘the banks’ can do so much better and, after all, every internet banking user is already set up to receive such a service directly, efficiently and securely, from their bank.
Do we then need to offer the banks and the major credit card companies another such monopoly-type situation? Ideally not. But, having said that, within the credit card system the individual banks do compete with each other on terms, interest rates, etc.
Regardless, it would be nice to have a card/terminal-less system that worked efficiently and effectively—as does the banks’ credit card system. Regrettably (or thankfully, some say), PayPal does not have such a partnership with ‘all the banks’ and so PayPal can never offer that same effectiveness.
My only surprise is that ‘all the banks’, via their credit card partners, have not yet offered their own system. When they do, it will be bye, bye, PayPal—you most ugly of daughters. And, more importantly, we will then have a system that works effectively, just like our credit cards do!
In support of the above comment I offer an introduction to the full sad/ugly story of eBay/PayPal at
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6502877
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