2013-02-01 americanbanker.com - PayPal's File-Sharing Restrictions Drive Merchan

[Akka]

PayPal's File-Sharing Restrictions Drive Merchants to Rivals

PayPal's strict requirements for merchants that sell file-storage services have created an opportunity for competitors including BitPay, which processes payments in the digital currency Bitcoin.

Last week, four vendors that market the cloud-storage services of Mega — the new venture from controversial Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom — stopped accepting payments through PayPal. It is unclear whether PayPal dropped them or vice versa.

PayPal, a unit of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), allows such merchants to sell only file-sharing services it has approved. PayPal also makes these merchants monitor uploads to prevent copyright infringement — somewhat akin to banks monitoring transactions under anti-money laundering regulations....


...Now that PayPal is trying to clamp down on file-storing sites, these vendors who've made investments in their servers and their infrastructure are saying … 'how are we going to accept payments?'" says BitPay founder Anthony Gallippi. "Some of them are looking at either accepting Bitcoin directly or using BitPay or another payment processor."...

Boom baby!

Full article: http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_23/paypal-s-file-sharing-restrictions-drive-merchants-to-rivals-1056407-1.html

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[TraderTimm]

What I like about this is not just that it utilizes bitcoin, but the other payment processors and banks are having a collective "WHAT THE HELL" moment. They're slowly realizing that there's a way to route AROUND them. I wish I could see their faces, it must be a combination of rage and shock.

So richly deserved, too. Go bitcoin, go!

[justusranvier]

What I would like to know is what BitPay is going to do when they come under the same kind of litigious pressure that PayPal did.

[Roger_Murdock]

What I like about this is not just that it utilizes bitcoin, but the other payment processors and banks are having a collective "WHAT THE HELL" moment. They're slowly realizing that there's a way to route AROUND them. I wish I could see their faces, it must be a combination of rage and shock.

So richly deserved, too. Go bitcoin, go!

Yep. It's a thing of beauty. I was actually just thinking about this quote from John Gilmore: "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Money is information. And government control of money is thus a form of censorship.

[sunnankar]

Yep. It's a thing of beauty. I was actually just thinking about this quote from John Gilmore: "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Money is information. And government control of money is thus a form of censorship.

Yes, economic censorship but Bitcoin has Sebastian Shaw characteristics.

[tjohej]

What I would like to know is what BitPay is going to do when they come under the same kind of litigious pressure that PayPal did.

Let's just hope that the company that has connected to BitPay is ready to accept BTC directly, if their intermediary comes under fire. If it comes under fire before, then we'll be trying to help it be easier for them to see the benefits of accepting BTC directly, won't we?

[hazek]

What I would like to know is what BitPay is going to do when they come under the same kind of litigious pressure that PayPal did.

I would too. But then again who cares if BitPay is forced to drop them. They can still accept payments themselves..

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Tony makes a great analogy between communication walled gardens like AOL vs. Prodigy and payment walled gardens like Paypal. I predict that the most effective analogies will keep returning to the fact that bitcoin is just communication (blocking it is just censorship).