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“PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”

seafile.de

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Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”

#2
Given that we've all read similar situations happening all over the web, I'm surprised organizations aren't including "paypal drops us for arbitrary reasons" or "paypal freezes our funds with them for arbitrary reasons" in their risk assessments when choosing vendors. In almost every case, that risk should probably push decision makers away from Paypal.

It is also a little entertaining that their "brand risk" department is probably doing so much unintentional damage to the brand.

Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”

#3
> PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as all our customers’ files for illegal content. They have also asked us to provide them with detailed statistics about the files types of our customers sync and share on https://app.seafile.de

That's a pretty big WTF right there.

I know PayPal has a on overall pretty scummy reputation, but I still I cannot imagine PayPal doing this because they themselves think they'll benefit from this data.

To me this seems like a demand which comes "upstream" from above PayPal, from its payment providers (VISA, MasterCard, American Express, etc). Would I be overly paranoid to imagine these demands and claims are the result of lobbing by entities like RIAA and MPAA? They do have a history for blocking payments to known pirate-friendly services after all.

And as such, they clearly have too much power, and there needs to be some anti-discriminatory financial regulation to stop business-hostile practices like this from being lobbied and put in place.

Because this is just madness.

Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”

#7
I have quite some personal experience with PayPal, and their policies seem quite random. If one person gets it into his or her head that something is not allowed, no voice of reason will change the decision. I wouldn't shed too much tears over it though, there are many better and cheaper alternative forms of payment.

Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”

#8
post #2

Given that we've all read similar situations happening all over the web, I'm surprised organizations aren't including "paypal drops us for arbitrary reasons" or "paypal freezes our funds with them for arbitrary reasons" in their risk assessments when choosing vendors. In almost every case, that risk should probably push decision makers away from Paypal. It is also a little entertaining that their "brand risk" departm…

> It is also a little entertaining that their "brand risk" department is probably doing so much unintentional damage to the brand. reply

Their brand risk department obviosly tries to optimize the brand for someone big, someone nameless, and not for the customers.

This itself leads to questions about paypals business model. Are they in business to provide payment services to users, or are their primary customers actually not end users, but someone buying something else?

Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”

#9
post #5
post #4

Apparently the other filesharing companies spy on user data,that is why they are on Paypal.

I wonder. It is a bit worrying that DropBox accepts PayPal.

Dropbox has been known to search users' data for files matching md5 sums someone claims they own, such as movies or known illegal photos.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/179495-how-dropbox-know...

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