This is just one reason why we must educated people to 100% stay away from ripple and stick with Bitcoin.
The Ripple payment network is facing criticism this week over revelations about the fungibility of its assets. It’s come to light that Ripple gateways — the onramps and offramps of the network — have the ability to “freeze” user funds at will. Furthermore, Ripple Labs has already used its influence to convince Bitstamp, a prominent gateway and exchange, to freeze $1 million worth of funds belonging to Ripple’s departed founder Jed McCaleb
Gateways have two methods of freezing funds, each intended for different scenarios. The first is dubbed a “global freeze.” This would cease all trading activity of every IOU issued by that gateway across the board. The global freeze is intended for cases when the gateway’s wallets have been compromised, or when it wants to migrate users to a new issuing account, according to a bulletin by Ripple Labs.
The second method is more targeted. The “individual account freeze” enables the gateway to cease all trading of one person’s funds, preventing them from sending the IOU’s to another person or gateway on the Ripple network. This method is intended for users with “suspicious or unusual account activity,” users who have violated the gateway’s terms of service, or in the case of a dispute resolution being handled by a third party.
http://bitcoinist.net/not-decentralized-ripple-freezes-1m-user-funds/
