4 ms·

>"We canno't provide details about why your account is closed and won't reactivate it" This type of behaviour should be banned by the European Union. You shou

by wnsire 8y ago

>"We canno't provide details about why your account is closed and won't reactivate it" This type of behaviour should be banned by the European Union. You should be provided with the exact reason of why your account is being closed , regardless of who is the provider of the service. It's unacceptable that companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Airbnb feel entitle to behave like this knowing how critical the service provided by those companies are for some organization. Plus the fact that those suspensions are usually done automatically by an algorithm powered by Machine Learning or something similar. This type of mechanism could destroy an entire organization if the account of CEOs , CTOs, CFOs are suddenly locked down without possibility to access their emails , their contacts, their meetings and others business critical information. This is outrageous.

hkai 8y ago
You can thank American and European governments for that. They extorted money from private companies for "due diligence violations" and now they will ban you and close your account on any smallest suspicion of financial impropriety or connections with sanctioned individuals or countries. As an example, people lost their money to PayPal and had their accounts banned because their address contained a street named after a sanctioned location. Corporations are panicking. They spend billions of dollars on due diligence now and this is the result you are seeing. They don't want to spend even more billions of dollars on fines. Obviously they can't tell you "transferring over 500 USD per month to Africa looked dodgy to us, so we closed your account". They are keeping details secret, which makes sense because next time you'd just circumvent their checks.
- morsma 8y ago
  This is the correct answer.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  > You can thank American and European governments for that. They extorted money from private companies for "due diligence violations" and now they will ban you and close your account on any smallest suspicion of financial impropriety or connections with sanctioned individuals or countries. > As an example, people lost their money to PayPal and had their accounts banned because their address contained a street named after a sanctioned location. That is ridiculous. Modern companies have no problem Hoovering up and analyzing vast amounts of intelligence on consumers for marketing purposes. PayPal almost certainly has liasons with any number of three-letter agencies that also feed them intel related to criminal or terrorist activity. Link analysis and graph database software has reached commodity status; it's affordable and available. Directing them to do something to stop transactions between accounts known to be affiliated with terrorism is a reasonable request. If their solution to money laundering bans accounts based on something so naive as terms found in a street address, their unbounded, colossal incompetence is not the fault of any government. PayPal has never had their shit together-- run-of-the-mill fraudsters have no problem keeping accounts open, but yours will eventually be seized without notice or explanation.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    > That is ridiculous. Modern companies have no problem Hoovering up and analyzing vast amounts of intelligence on consumers ... Meanwhile the EU imposed a 3 billion dollar fine on Google for, and this is sadly not a joke, depreffing incredibly annoying shopping comparison sites, specifically this one [1][2] and a few others. Go on, visit it. And then tell me how much the quality of the internet is lowered by making that site harder to find. (the real reason: the Kelkoo CEO, and I'm not even joking, convinced a secretary of the EU competition commisioner (the previous one) that they were a viable EU-based competitor to Google. Yes, really, that's the level of intelligence the EU commission had, they believed that Kelkoo would be doing internet search engines better than Google) What exactly makes you think that when we're talking lesser amounts they'd be more careful ? Doesn't it make more sense that when they want something, like say, imposing sanctions or find someone that may have spied on them, they don't just go "all info on these users or it's a $100 million fine" ? Because reality is more like "Block this list of users because the police chief's wife's tennis partners' ball producer's 2-year old niece says they stole a teddy from her dog or it's a $1 billion fine. Oh never mind she found it. Did you block em yet ? BLOCK EM !" [1] http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ [2] https://www.politico.eu/pro/politico-pro-morning-tech-google-antitrust-anxiety-copyright-showdown-postcard-from-the-hague https://www.politico.eu/pro/politico-pro-morning-tech-google... (non-paywalled mirror @ http://blog.digitalmedialicensing.org/?p=3823 http://blog.digitalmedialicensing.org/?p=3823 )
stouset 8y ago
Often times companies are legally barred from disclosing this information. For example, in the financial services sector, if a person’s account is linked to certain forms of financial crimes, it is strictly illegal for the company to tell the owner why their account was suspended and/or funds frozen. The intent is to not reveal that the account had been linked to (for example) financing of terrorist organizations, but in reality I think it causes more problems than it solves. A real criminal who has their account shut down is probably going to be pretty aware of what the reason is. On the other hand, many times something like this can happen due to a mistake by a government agency, an account takeover, or some other situation where the owner of the account has no idea what went wrong or how to fix it, and finds themselves blackballed by multiple financial institutions with no recourse. I’m not a fan of PayPal by any shot, but I would wager a nontrivial number of the customer support nightmare stories we’ve all read actually come down to this, and their hands are completely tied.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Someone who has a) been committing financial crimes and b) finds their funds frozen will probably be able to connect the dots. If they're barred by law from saying why, fine. If not, they should have to provide at least some reason, and a way to appeal.
- avip 8y ago
  In such case, I'd expect the reply to include "unfortunately, we're legally barred from providing any further details".
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Well, then, in that case you've basically just told them you closed the account because you suspected it of being involved in {money laundering, funding terrorism, fulfilling the drug trade}.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      You don't think the person doing money laundering and finding their accounts frozen won't have figured that out already? "Gee, it must've been that meme I posted the other day."
Shank 8y ago
I agree that companies should provide more transparency, but I think that this should be provided as a remediation process to get an account back into compliance, rather than termination reason. If companies were able to give you actionable steps or why your account was flagged, that would let them have a way forward to retain a customer as well as provide answers. On the converse, though, termination without reason does serve a purpose. For example, if this was because of illegal content being stored on the service, Microsoft may be complying with law enforcement and doesn’t want to tip off the suspect. I strongly believe account remediation is better than all out termination, and that termination should only be enacted in the most severe of cases (repeat offenses or potentially criminal conduct).
- gruez 8y ago
  >Microsoft may be complying with law enforcement and doesn’t want to tip off the suspect. the suspect is already going to be tipped off by the fact his account is banned
paulpauper 8y ago
although I can see how this can be abused. Imagine if I create 10000+ spam Facebook accounts and they all get disabled, am I entitled to a written explanation for why each account got disabled?
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Sure, why not? An automated form reply stating "Your account was blocked for the following spam posts" with a way to appeal false positives. You might even require a $5 bond to appeal or something, to prevent spurious appeals.
  - dublinben 8y ago
    This just teaches the abusive users which behavior was caught, so they can learn to be better at evading that scrutiny in the future. It is completely counterproductive for a company to provided banned users with a detailed reason for their ban.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      Spammers have plenty of ability to A/B test these things to determine which posts trigger and which don't. Meanwhile, normal users are left totally confused, with zero recourse and potentially a loss of important data and other significant repercussions.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jdietrich 8y ago
>This type of behaviour should be banned by the European Union. It probably already is. Under Article 15 of the GDPR, you have the right to access personal data and to an explanation of how that data will be processed. A database entry saying "this account has breached clause x.y of our ToS" constitutes personal data within the scope of GDPR. Under article 16, you have the right to correct any inaccurate data. Under Article 22, you have the right to opt-out of any wholly automated decision-making process that "produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her". Article 23 does impose some restrictions on those rights, e.g. in matters of national security, defence or criminal justice, but those restrictions are narrow and specific. If someone tells you "your account is banned and we can't give you any further information", they're likely in breach of the GDPR. https://gdpr-info.eu/chapter-3/ https://gdpr-info.eu/chapter-3/

by wnsire 8y ago

hkai 8y ago

You can thank American and European governments for that. They extorted money from private companies for "due diligence violations" and now they will ban you and close your account on any smallest suspicion of financial impropriety or connections with sanctioned individuals or countries. As an example, people lost their money to PayPal and had their accounts banned because their address contained a street named after a sanctioned location. Corporations are panicking. They spend billions of dollars on due diligence now and this is the result you are seeing. They don't want to spend even more billions of dollars on fines. Obviously they can't tell you "transferring over 500 USD per month to Africa looked dodgy to us, so we closed your account". They are keeping details secret, which makes sense because next time you'd just circumvent their checks.

morsma 8y ago
This is the correct answer.
jstarfish 8y ago
> You can thank American and European governments for that. They extorted money from private companies for "due diligence violations" and now they will ban you and close your account on any smallest suspicion of financial impropriety or connections with sanctioned individuals or countries. > As an example, people lost their money to PayPal and had their accounts banned because their address contained a street named after a sanctioned location. That is ridiculous. Modern companies have no problem Hoovering up and analyzing vast amounts of intelligence on consumers for marketing purposes. PayPal almost certainly has liasons with any number of three-letter agencies that also feed them intel related to criminal or terrorist activity. Link analysis and graph database software has reached commodity status; it's affordable and available. Directing them to do something to stop transactions between accounts known to be affiliated with terrorism is a reasonable request. If their solution to money laundering bans accounts based on something so naive as terms found in a street address, their unbounded, colossal incompetence is not the fault of any government. PayPal has never had their shit together-- run-of-the-mill fraudsters have no problem keeping accounts open, but yours will eventually be seized without notice or explanation.
- candiodari 8y ago
  > That is ridiculous. Modern companies have no problem Hoovering up and analyzing vast amounts of intelligence on consumers ... Meanwhile the EU imposed a 3 billion dollar fine on Google for, and this is sadly not a joke, depreffing incredibly annoying shopping comparison sites, specifically this one [1][2] and a few others. Go on, visit it. And then tell me how much the quality of the internet is lowered by making that site harder to find. (the real reason: the Kelkoo CEO, and I'm not even joking, convinced a secretary of the EU competition commisioner (the previous one) that they were a viable EU-based competitor to Google. Yes, really, that's the level of intelligence the EU commission had, they believed that Kelkoo would be doing internet search engines better than Google) What exactly makes you think that when we're talking lesser amounts they'd be more careful ? Doesn't it make more sense that when they want something, like say, imposing sanctions or find someone that may have spied on them, they don't just go "all info on these users or it's a $100 million fine" ? Because reality is more like "Block this list of users because the police chief's wife's tennis partners' ball producer's 2-year old niece says they stole a teddy from her dog or it's a $1 billion fine. Oh never mind she found it. Did you block em yet ? BLOCK EM !" [1] http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ [2] https://www.politico.eu/pro/politico-pro-morning-tech-google-antitrust-anxiety-copyright-showdown-postcard-from-the-hague https://www.politico.eu/pro/politico-pro-morning-tech-google... (non-paywalled mirror @ http://blog.digitalmedialicensing.org/?p=3823 http://blog.digitalmedialicensing.org/?p=3823 )

stouset 8y ago

Often times companies are legally barred from disclosing this information. For example, in the financial services sector, if a person’s account is linked to certain forms of financial crimes, it is strictly illegal for the company to tell the owner why their account was suspended and/or funds frozen. The intent is to not reveal that the account had been linked to (for example) financing of terrorist organizations, but in reality I think it causes more problems than it solves. A real criminal who has their account shut down is probably going to be pretty aware of what the reason is. On the other hand, many times something like this can happen due to a mistake by a government agency, an account takeover, or some other situation where the owner of the account has no idea what went wrong or how to fix it, and finds themselves blackballed by multiple financial institutions with no recourse. I’m not a fan of PayPal by any shot, but I would wager a nontrivial number of the customer support nightmare stories we’ve all read actually come down to this, and their hands are completely tied.

ceejayoz 8y ago
Someone who has a) been committing financial crimes and b) finds their funds frozen will probably be able to connect the dots. If they're barred by law from saying why, fine. If not, they should have to provide at least some reason, and a way to appeal.
avip 8y ago
In such case, I'd expect the reply to include "unfortunately, we're legally barred from providing any further details".
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Well, then, in that case you've basically just told them you closed the account because you suspected it of being involved in {money laundering, funding terrorism, fulfilling the drug trade}.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    You don't think the person doing money laundering and finding their accounts frozen won't have figured that out already? "Gee, it must've been that meme I posted the other day."

Shank 8y ago

I agree that companies should provide more transparency, but I think that this should be provided as a remediation process to get an account back into compliance, rather than termination reason. If companies were able to give you actionable steps or why your account was flagged, that would let them have a way forward to retain a customer as well as provide answers. On the converse, though, termination without reason does serve a purpose. For example, if this was because of illegal content being stored on the service, Microsoft may be complying with law enforcement and doesn’t want to tip off the suspect. I strongly believe account remediation is better than all out termination, and that termination should only be enacted in the most severe of cases (repeat offenses or potentially criminal conduct).

gruez 8y ago
>Microsoft may be complying with law enforcement and doesn’t want to tip off the suspect. the suspect is already going to be tipped off by the fact his account is banned

paulpauper 8y ago

although I can see how this can be abused. Imagine if I create 10000+ spam Facebook accounts and they all get disabled, am I entitled to a written explanation for why each account got disabled?

ceejayoz 8y ago
Sure, why not? An automated form reply stating "Your account was blocked for the following spam posts" with a way to appeal false positives. You might even require a $5 bond to appeal or something, to prevent spurious appeals.
- dublinben 8y ago
  This just teaches the abusive users which behavior was caught, so they can learn to be better at evading that scrutiny in the future. It is completely counterproductive for a company to provided banned users with a detailed reason for their ban.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    Spammers have plenty of ability to A/B test these things to determine which posts trigger and which don't. Meanwhile, normal users are left totally confused, with zero recourse and potentially a loss of important data and other significant repercussions.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jdietrich 8y ago

>This type of behaviour should be banned by the European Union. It probably already is. Under Article 15 of the GDPR, you have the right to access personal data and to an explanation of how that data will be processed. A database entry saying "this account has breached clause x.y of our ToS" constitutes personal data within the scope of GDPR. Under article 16, you have the right to correct any inaccurate data. Under Article 22, you have the right to opt-out of any wholly automated decision-making process that "produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her". Article 23 does impose some restrictions on those rights, e.g. in matters of national security, defence or criminal justice, but those restrictions are narrow and specific. If someone tells you "your account is banned and we can't give you any further information", they're likely in breach of the GDPR. https://gdpr-info.eu/chapter-3/ https://gdpr-info.eu/chapter-3/