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Paypal Bans Usenet Providers Over Piracy Concerns
- bkor 14y agoInteresting in light of the questions asked by the EU about the control of payment providers. Those questions were specifically about WikiLeaks, but the same applies to usenet providers as well as private torrent sites.
- tomjen3 14y agoWell more business for Stripe (not that they needed it).
- jamoes 14y agoNo centralized payment provider is immune from US law. Eventually Stripe will suffer the same fate.
- DannyBee 14y agoCan you please point out the portion of US law you believe requires paypal to do this?
- weego 14y agoI expect he would think that it was the unwritten part called "strong-arming" by various interested parties.
- rhizome 14y agoI believe it's informally contained in the facilities allowing for discretionary enforcement of regulatory constraints.
- foobarqux 14y agoIt's not law it's agreements between powerful parties promoting each other's interests for their own benefit.
- rb2k_ 14y agoMight help Bitcoin as a decentralized payment provider then :)
- jebblue 14y agoChrome warned me there is a malware connected site on that page.
- harshreality 14y agoTorrentfreak? I don't get any warnings in chrome. Also: http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=torrentfreak.com http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=torrentfr...
- jebblue 14y agoThis is what Chrome told me: Danger: Malware Ahead! Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on torrentfreak.com. Content from ox-d.traffiqexchange.com, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware.
- drivebyacct2 14y agoWell, you can roll the dice. Depending on what OS you're on, that dice may be weighted differently...
- ashray 14y agoSo it's one of their advertisers. Main problem with 3rd party ad networks =/ Hope they sort it out. For what it's worth, torrentfreak is pretty clean.
- Nux 14y agoWhat you need is NoScript ;-)
- harshreality 14y agoEither adblock or ghostery is blocking that ad network, then.
- Groxx 14y agoHit esc before the page finishes loading - kills the connection that loads whatever it is that connects to the flagged site.
- dmix 14y ago+1 for bitcoin.
- cschneid 14y agoWhen my paypal was broken into - it was immediately used to order from a EU based usenet provider. Paypal reversed it for me, but I wonder how much of this is fraud related?
- robk 14y agoThis is really bothersome that they're trying to monitor activity on these sites. Paypal has absolutely no place doing that.
- drivebyacct2 14y agoWell, maybe this will motivate BitCoin payment methods on these sites. I need to change providers anyway, I'm not happy with mine. Last time I looked, I had only found one provider that accepted BitCoin and they were considerably more expensive (more than the BitCoin markup I was ready to pay even).
- rhizome 14y agoI have to wonder if this is a big fuck-you to the world after the EU's moves against Visa over Wikileaks yesterday. "Sure you might be able to clamp down on them for policing content, but watch what we can do."
- ChuckMcM 14y agoChrome popped this up from the torrentfreak page: Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on torrentfreak.com. Content from ox-d.traffiqexchange.com, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware. Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss, and permanent file deletion. Learn more
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- davorak 14y agoI am not getting that with Chrome. Try accessing through vpn and see if you get the same warning.
- ernesto99 14y agoI think this is coming from the (big name) ad network we're using. Disabled the ads for now and will probably switch to Paypal donations... Oh wait...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- farhanpatel 14y agoUsenet is under attack. A lot of TV/Movie companies are starting to send DMCA requests to usenet providers. The other day SabMini a iOS client for sabnzbd had to remove support for sickbeard(a PVR for usenet) I think we are seeing the systematic destruction of Usenet. Usenet won't go away but just become harder. Releases won't be named correctly to avoid getting DMCA notices. Looks like someone broke the first rule of Usenet...
- Axsuul 14y agoI have seen no evidence of this destruction.
- nekojima 14y agoIn the last two or three months I've found it increasingly difficult to find new postings under their titles on my Usenet provider. I wasn't sure initially if it was their search function that was broken/corrupted, but asking Helpdesk doesn't help when they cut you off if you ask for assistance on copyrighted material. Finding another term that doesn't give replies but that should be there, as an alternative, is rather tough.
- csense 14y agoIf you're upset at Paypal's behavior and you're building a startup that involves payments, please look into at least offering the option of alternative payment providers.
- noonespecial 14y agoCopyright bullies make me mad, but this does have the effect of sussing out the weaknesses in the system when all that is at stake is last weeks "Honey Boo Boo". Its like a trial run for the real deal. By the time real hardcore censorship tries to become a world-wide phenomenon, the internet will already be well optimized to circumvent it. If all that comes of this is a strengthening and legitimizing of bitcoin, its still a net win.
- Nux 14y agoSo Paypal's also sucking it from the MAFIAA, hardly surprising.
- dsl 14y agoPlease go back to Reddit.
- freshhawk 14y agoIf the internet was clearly winning this fight I would agree. I still partly do since if you had to pick something to do a trial run, this is a decent fit. The legislators and pro-censorship international treaty writers are also getting a lot of practice. And they seem to be innovating faster and winning more battles than the internet.
- noonespecial 14y agoI think they're just teaching a lesson that the internet has until recently been slow to learn. Centralization is bad. Single-pass bottle-necks like Paypal are worse. Bitcoin is crazy until it isn't. Its a lot of effort and risk to buy access to a forum that has a few silly TV shows. Not so much when its a patented drug you need to survive that's only available in rich countries to the "right" people.
- freshhawk 14y agoHmm, I think I'm just more pessimistic than you are. I agree except for the part where you implied that the internet has recently been learning anything. Centralization is the big new thing. People talk about the solutions but none of them are really succeeding. Bitcoin has a serious fight ahead of it. The US does not treat alternative currencies well historically once they cause any kind of trouble. It would likely have already happened if there was any single group or person that could be arrested to shut it down.
- driverdan 14y agoThere is an upside. The more BS like this that PayPal pulls the more people will stop using their service.
- nekojima 14y agoWhile my credit card company and bank allow me to purchase online without the intrusion and privacy violations that PayPal regularly insists on, I continue to see no reason to use PayPal.
- lectrick 14y agoUsenet providers switching to Bitcoin in 3... 2... 1...
- freshhawk 14y agoI'm so glad we've moved past that boring old money. Remember the kind that could be used anywhere and for anything? Now my money tells me what I can and can't spend it on!