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I think its fairly clear that real story is simply that PayPal didn't want to jeopardize its relationships with Visa and MasterCard, and was only trying to expl

I think its fairly clear that real story is simply that PayPal didn't want to jeopardize its relationships with Visa and MasterCard, and was only trying to explain in good faith why PayPal and MEGA.nz are in this position. > Visa and MasterCard then pressured PayPal to cease providing payment services to MEGA. As you observed, from a practical perspective it's a real problem for these types of services that they can't do much to rebut accusations of piracy, making it particularly important to behave as a "good corporate citizen" in other ways. And while Visa and MasterCard are free (I would think) to do business, or not, with anyone they choose for any reason, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on the other hand, should be expected to act on more solid information that some industry report before he tries to shut down someone's business. In any event, MEGA.nz is clearly trying to claim they they were targeted because they provide end-to-end encryption. This is false. They were targeted because they are widely viewed as promoting copyright infringement. That they offer end-to-end encryption really plays only a tangential role in these accusations.

themartorana 12y ago
It's quite easy to declare that anyone claiming to need end-to-end encryption has something to hide. The NSA, and by extension pretty much any agency of the US government won't stand for being truly locked out of a person's online activities, and can put extreme pressure on a foreign company through US companies, through government reach - in this case through a Senator. And that's all that needs to be said to put one company with extreme security out of business through the use of other companies is "they're pirates, or they'd show us their files." Won't someone think of the children and whatnot. Wasn't it nice, pre-Snowden, when you could read the above paragraphs and think "that's a crazy conspiracy theory..."

themartorana 12y ago

It's quite easy to declare that anyone claiming to need end-to-end encryption has something to hide. The NSA, and by extension pretty much any agency of the US government won't stand for being truly locked out of a person's online activities, and can put extreme pressure on a foreign company through US companies, through government reach - in this case through a Senator. And that's all that needs to be said to put one company with extreme security out of business through the use of other companies is "they're pirates, or they'd show us their files." Won't someone think of the children and whatnot. Wasn't it nice, pre-Snowden, when you could read the above paragraphs and think "that's a crazy conspiracy theory..."