PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade” • Hacker News Board

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#31

Post by saddlerustle » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

PayPal compliance is a very different problem to social media moderation. Financial regulations require any transaction that is "suspicious" in any way of having links to terrorism financing or money laundering be reviewed, and there are large and personal penalties for not doing so. And a review is expected to be more like auditing your customers entire financial history than just asking what they meant by a word, so for a consumer service like PayPal the only real option is to block the transaction. In that climate there's no good reason not to massively over-filter, the risks of a false negative are way too high.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#32

Post by mrweasel » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

skissane wrote: post #19

nieve wrote: post #9

Farther down the thread: A few people mentioned OFAC sanctions, so I investigated a bit more. In Dec 2019, US Dept of Treasury sanctioned companies linked to Serbian arms dealer Slobodan Tesic, including Cyprus-based Tardigrade Ltd. So PayPal flags tardigrade ornaments by mistake.

Part of this is no doubt Paypal's fault, but part of it is also the fault of the US's over-the-top trade sanctions laws. The penalties for getting it wrong are so severe, it creates a strong incentive for companies to err on the side of caution even when doing so produces idiotic outcomes like this one.

I don’t think it has to do with err on the side of caution. I don’t think PayPal has the technology to implement better blocking.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#33

Post by tuiq03 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

I work europe based ecommerce company. paypal was blocking orders for any product that had “cuba” as pat of the name/description due to us cuban sanctions. although after talking with account manager, they have removed this filter for us.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#34

Post by therealmarv » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

Same for the word "Bitcoin". If you try to send something with this word to somebody it will block their and your account. For me this is an (kamikaze) attack vector.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#35

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:20 AM UTC

akerro wrote: post #28

_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

Are you telling me I can start website called "ebay ltd" and get donations from paypal for hosting wikileaks and snowden leaks and paypay might block ebay transactions along with my ebay ltd?

[deleted]

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#36

Post by skissane » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:24 AM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #32

skissane wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of this is no doubt Paypal's fault, but part of it is also the fault of the US's over-the-top trade sanctions laws. The penalties for getting it wrong are so severe, it creates a strong incentive for companies to err on the side of caution even when doing so produces idiotic outcomes like this one.

I don’t think it has to do with err on the side of caution. I don’t think PayPal has the technology to implement better blocking.

The problem is that if you make a false negative error, there is the risk of severe legal sanctions, if you make a false positive error, there are zero negative legal consequences. Hence the law encourages everyone to prefer false positive errors to false negative errors, and this is the result. If the legal incentives were different, the outcome would be different.

The law could provide an efficient recourse in case of false positives – e.g. a legislated right to appeal, legislated SLAs for considering appeals (and penalties for failing to meet them), indemnification for the provider if they grant an appeal in good faith, an expedited process for judicial review of denied appeals, etc – but the law doesn't, and since there is no incentive for an efficient recourse, nobody provides one

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#37

Post by blunte » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

tuiq03 wrote: post #33

I work europe based ecommerce company. paypal was blocking orders for any product that had “cuba” as pat of the name/description due to us cuban sanctions. although after talking with account manager, they have removed this filter for us.

Based on my experiences helping a client with Paypal, even though we had written approval from one of their executives in Paypal risk management, we got shut down weeks later for violating the thing we explicitly got permission for.

If I were you, I would expect something to trigger a blockage again (and ultimately decide, like many companies, that Paypal just isn't reliable).

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#38

Post by sitzkrieg » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

why is paypal and other payment processors getting caught out with this braindead text filter stuff? slam a grep somewhere instead of real effort?

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#39

Post by _Microft » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

bleepblorp wrote: post #10

Duplicate submission from several hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24445174

I check for popular sources (Quanta Magazine, Nautilus, Ars Technica, ...) but Twitter threads I usually just submit - if it's not someone super-duper well-known or popular here on HN. Foone's latest shenanigans would warrant a check for earlier submissions for example. My apologies.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#40

Post by the8472 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

saddlerustle wrote: post #31

_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

PayPal compliance is a very different problem to social media moderation. Financial regulations require any transaction that is "suspicious" in any way of having links to terrorism financing or money laundering be reviewed, and there are large and personal penalties for not doing so. And a review is expected to be more like auditing your customers entire financial history than just asking what they meant by a word, s…

But for regular banks service to private citizens is also compulsory, so they can't just choose the easy path by blocking a transaction based on keyword filters, they must do the intended auditing. So for them there is a balance, for paypal there isn't.