
PayPal Restores Seafile's Account after File-Monitoring Row - TimWolla
http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/paypal-seafile-monitoring/
======
mtgx
Sure, an apology - because the negative PR is starting to hurt Paypal.

But how many other tens or hundreds of other companies experience the same
kind of censorship from Paypal, but never get to cause the same level of
outrage for Paypal to "apologize"?

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binarymax
The page does not translate very well, but is PayPal admitting fault here?
Does this open them up to litigation from Seafile?

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pjc50
Remember, customer outrage (sometimes) works!

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JoshGlazebrook
Paypal only apologizes when they can't get away with being themselves quietly.

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Argorak
So, they apologize. I'm sure the damage inflicted is noticable, will PayPal
cover that?

And this is the problem of the modern service industry: they never stand in
for damages, even if the damage is inflicted through a wilful decision. As a
client, you are at their whim.

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cheriot
I've been hoping they would become a better partner as an independent company.
Maybe this is the first sign.

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cprayingmantis
After working with a non-profit who had transactions frozen because they
mentioned Cuba in a comment field I have stopped using Paypal on all future
projects. It's easy to implement for non profits but it's just not worth it to
these people to have to worry about the hassle of actually getting their
money.

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ryan-c
This appears to contains comments from a previous post that linked to google
translate, but I don't see a comment from dang mentioning a change/merge. Too
early in the morning?

~~~
TimWolla
It was changed by 'sctb':

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961301)

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ckastner
And yet again, no explanation what this "illegal content" is supposed to be.

~~~
mtgx
Or a change to a more clear policy for that matter.

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puddintane
If not a duplicate at least here's a non translated form for English users.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11960092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11960092)

~~~
notwhereyouare
wow, at least the translated verion mentions seafile in the title. the fortine
article doesn't mention it at all in the title, just dropbox alternative

~~~
puddintane
Yeah that site has odd SEO - I believe this is why Google uses multiple
methods to parse an article title - as such I'm pretty sure they parsed the
title from the <title> tag on that page

If you search the link on most search engine's it shows that the title is
"PayPal Restores Account of Dropbox Rival Seafile After Monitoring Row"

"<title>PayPal Restores Account of Dropbox Rival Seafile After Monitoring Row
- Fortune</title>"

Of course the article title in-line doesn't have that but it was probably a
bad move on the developer's part to not create as much duplicated content on
the page would be my guess as to why that occurred.

Either way it is very confusing I agree!

Just thought users would like a non-translated form as not everyone can spend
extra time re-reading sentences to understand the exact context of the
article!

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al_chemist
Let me guess "We are sorry that you went public with our unlawful request"?

~~~
richardwhiuk
The request wasn't unlawful - it might not be legally required, but it's fine
for any business to impose almost any requirement on any other business before
doing business with them.

~~~
nailer
It violated EU privacy law if my understanding is correct.

------
ketzu
[http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt-
sich-b...](http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt-sich-bei-
dropbox-alternative-seafile-1606-121694.html)

The original for everyone capable at reading German.

~~~
heartsucker
Man sagt "capable of reading" und nicht "capable at reading."

Tut mir leid, wenn das unhöfflich ist, aber ich gehe davon aus, wir alle
besser schreiben wollen. :)

~~~
wnesensohn
Es heißt "unhöflich", und da fehlt ein "dass" (...gehe davon aus, dass wir
alle...).

Stilistisch etwas besser wäre: "Es tut mir leid, wenn das unhöflich wirkt,
aber ich gehe davon aus, dass wir alle unseren Schreibstil verbessern wollen."
(I'd say the first comma should be left out, but I have the tendency to leave
out vital commas as well, so...)

;)

~~~
heartsucker
Bah. Das ist was passiert, wann man Deutsch in Berlin gelernt hat. Schlampig
und umgangssprachlich.

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bluetidepro
Slightly off topic, but does anyone else feel like the article title used here
("Paypal apologizes to Dropbox Alternative seafile") is a pretty big slap in
the face to Seafile?

First off, why include "Dropbox Alternative"? Putting the competitor's name in
an article title about the other company? Seems a bit odd/kind of putting down
Seafile. That'd be like seeing "XYZ happens to Twitter alternative Facebook."

Secondly, they didn't even capitalize Seafile's company name, but they did
capitalize the competition's name (Dropbox).

May not seem like much but it's pretty shitty, if you ask me.

EDIT: I guess the 2nd point is more the fault of Google Translate. I still
think the first point sticks. It's odd to have that in the title, it wouldn't
be as weird if that was in the body of the article, though.

~~~
nopzor
I don't think it's shitty. Firstly nobody knows who seafile is, so it's just
clearer. Secondly, by comparing them to Dropbox they are also acknowledging
that seafile is a "legit" file sharing company.

~~~
markokrajnc
I agree. By adding "Dropbox alternative" everybody immediately knows what the
company Seafile is doing...

~~~
dublinben
Like snooping on their users' files, and reporting them to the police? Because
that's what Dropbox is doing, and is exactly the opposite of what Seafile is
doing.

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awalton
I still don't understand how anyone does business with Paypal. Their abuses
and shitty business practices like this just continue, and will only continue
to get more abhorrent. This is yet another tissue paper apology issued after
the fact it's already cost someone business, and only offered after it made
more bad press for Paypal.

There are alternatives now. You don't have to keep doing business with these
colossal assholes.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Many people who won't give you their credit card number will pay you via
PayPal, because PayPal is perceived to have more consumer protection. (They
maintain that perception by having a massive bias towards consumers at the
expense of merchants.) Some people who don't _have_ credit cards use PayPal.

~~~
icebraining
Paypal follows the sane system of having the payer tell them who and how much
to pay, instead of CC's process where the seller tells them "it's cool, the
buyer totally wanted me to have $X" and the payment processor simply complies.

/rant

(Yes, 3-D secure exists, but as a user it's impossible to verify that the site
is actually using it before handing over the CC info)

~~~
JoshTriplett
Agreed; this and actual cryptographic signatures should be a requirement to
process any payment.

I'd like that for a bill pay system, too. Right now, I have to choose between
systems with direct bank account access that can debit any amount, or systems
that require manual entry of amounts. I'd like to see a standard where the
source of a bill sends an invoice to my bank, and I then direct the bank to
pay it (either via direct authorization, or by setting parameters like
"automatically pay if less than $X").

~~~
icebraining
What pains me is that the committee that created the new SEPA Direct Debit
standard had the choice (the two processes were used in different EU
countries) and they chose the dumb one!

We actually had a sane direct debit system here in Portugal, in which the
invoice would come with a code that you could input into your bank's site or
ATM, therefore authorizing future debits from that company. It was safe, it
could be easily revoked, and we lost it to implement SEPA's crappy version.

