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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”

#71

Post by lmm »

ominous wrote: post #47
MichaelBurge wrote: post #11

File sharing services are listed as requiring pre-approval, so Seafile should've sent them an email before accepting it as payment: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full They're well within their rights to decline your business. If a bank told the government, "We have no absolutely no idea what our customers are doing with their money or who they're sending it to. Maybe they're sending it to ter…

> They're well within their rights to decline your business. They are. Should we condone it? > "Maybe they're sending it to terrorists or drug lords, maybe they're not; it's none of our business and we respect their privacy" Isn't this similar to the idea of banning web browsers, as they render HTML which, as we all know, can be used to write text ( plaintext! ) inciting terrorism? And it sometimes is. Are you using…

> Isn't this similar to the idea of banning web browsers, as they render HTML which, as we all know, can be used to write text (plaintext!) inciting terrorism? And it sometimes is. Are you using a browser right now?

Search engines and hosting services already monitor for illegal content.

Reasonable people can disagree over whether requiring a filesharing service to monitor for illegal content is excessively onerous, but the slippery-slope fallacy does noone any favours. You can make any policy sound absurd by taking it to a far enough extreme. Often we do need to weigh up costs and benefits and take a policy line somewhere in the middle.

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

#72

Post by Sir_Substance »

thwd wrote: post #52
weego wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eaten alive by crypto currencies I worry about your perception of how the world outside of techy people works.

Agreed; with both of you. Maybe it won't be crypto-currencies, but Paypal Has To Go®. Let them screw up two or three more times. They're antiquated and operate like a typical barely-legal, gray-area, fee-riddled credit institution. I wonder why Douglas Crockford, a brilliant man, still works there (other than obviously well compensated time).

>Agreed; with both of you. Maybe it won't be crypto-currencies, but Paypal Has To Go®. Let them screw up two or three more times.

They've already screwed up and screwed people over publicly dozens of times. Paypal does have to go, but I don't think paypal will die until someone offers an equivalent service.

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

#73

Post by oarsinsync »

simonswords82 wrote: post #46
rio517 wrote: 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…

The reason PayPal continues to be provided with the opportunity to fuck people over is primarily due to their low financial/technical barriers to entry. A website can be configured to accept PayPal payments in less than half a day, and setting up a new PayPal account is a very straightforward process. Compare this with setting up a merchant account to take payments (here in the UK), which takes weeks, involves findin…

I deployed Nochex instead of PayPal back in 2005, and it took less than half a day, and came with guaranteed no chargebacks on UK payments and lower fees.

Good PayPal competitors have existed in this space for a long time. PayPal still remains.

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

#74

Post by raimue »

mootothemax wrote: post #51

Here's PayPal's page on what they require for file-sharing services: >Merchants offering file-sharing programs or access to newsgroup services must monitor for and prevent access to illegal content. https://www.paypal.com/selfhelp/article/FAQ1116/?country.x=J...

"Article is currently unavailable"

Searching for this entry with keywords like "file-sharing" did not turn up anything.

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

#75

Post by oarsinsync »

ladybro wrote: post #25
raverbashing wrote: post #24

Paypal only exists because the current infrastructure of payments in the US is a joke Nobody needs paypal in Europe. Of course, they try to sell themselves as "the easiest way" (which is right to a point) but it's mostly unneeded

What are the alternatives in Europe that make Paypal not needed? Genuinely curious, not saying you're wrong by any means.

Nochex was UK only when I used them, but their website now indicates they take payments from European cards now too.

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

#76

Post by mootothemax »

raimue wrote: post #74
mootothemax wrote: post #51

Here's PayPal's page on what they require for file-sharing services: >Merchants offering file-sharing programs or access to newsgroup services must monitor for and prevent access to illegal content. https://www.paypal.com/selfhelp/article/FAQ1116/?country.x=J...

"Article is currently unavailable" Searching for this entry with keywords like "file-sharing" did not turn up anything.

>Searching for this entry with keywords like "file-sharing" did not turn up anything.

Well that's really helpful of them.

I've updated the link, can you read it now?

Edit: FWIW, this was on the first page of Google for me - in Poland - when searching "paypal file-sharing"

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

#77

Post by pgeorgi »

icebraining wrote: post #49
mschuster91 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany: SEPA direct debit, sofortueberweisung.de, giropay, and if you're willing to put up with PCI compliance bullshit, credit cards. All three are vastly cheaper than PP, too.

I'd rather pay with Paypal than SEPA SDD, which ported the brain damaged idea of allowing anyone to pull money from your account with an IBAN by simply claiming they are authorized. We actually had to lose our DD system with its sane authorization process to implement this crap.

And still, credit card fraud seems to be a huge issue in the US, while Lastschriftbetrug is a relatively minor issue in Germany. (and both have a charge back procedure)

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

#78

Post by PeterisP »

rio517 wrote: 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's the same for all other payment processing methods - no matter how you handle your money, "our bank drops us for one reason or another", "our creditcard acquiring provider freezes our funds for arbitrary reasons", "our favorite cryptocurrency suddenly loses liquidity due to a major fraud event" and all kinds of other channel risks should absolutely be on your mind if you want to, like, base your whole business on receiving money through that channel.

You should have alternate payment channels - even if you don't want to use them now, even if they're twice as expensive, if you need that money flowing then you want to have a solid alternate payment channel. Even if you don't want to advertise them to your customers due to e.g. costs, then you want to have all the legal agreements and technical integration in place so that you can turn it on right now if you needed to.

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

#79

Post by vidarh »

celticninja wrote: post #67
geomark wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a developing country (some call it third world) and we've had this capability for many years. I can pay from my computer, mobile, or at an ATM. How is the US so far behind the rest of the developed and developing world?

They only just got chip and pin cards, while everyone else is moving to contactless payments.

A lot of US banks have actually opted for chip and signature instead of chip and pin...

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

#80

Post by ckastner »

cm2187 wrote: post #56
josteink wrote: post #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 th…

Welcome to the world of financial regulations! You may have not realised but banks and any financial institutions have been deputised by the regulators to be the financial police. They need to ensure that none of their client use financial services to commit crimes or launder the proceeds of a crime, under the penalty of heavy (up to multi billions) fines. Particularly in the US. I am pretty sure this is what is forc…

> Welcome to the world of financial regulations!

> You may have not realised but banks and any financial institutions have been deputised by the regulators to be the financial police. They need to endure that none of their client use financial services to commit crimes or launder the proceeds of a crime, under the penalty of heavy (up to multi billions) fines. Particularly in the US.

While I fully agree with this statement, PayPal's actions here seem excessive even by the broadest interpretations of anti-money-laundering regulations. Furthermore, AML regulations target a specific set of transactions and/or individuals.

"Monitoring all traffic for illegal content" is a vague statement that could mean anything. Illegal where? Illegal how?

Edit: I forgot to mention: PayPal operates as a credit institution (ie, a bank) within the EU, so the strict AML regulations the parent alluded to apply to it directly.

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