

PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns - blottsie
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/paypal-protonmail-freeze/

======
milesskorpen
While I know nothing about the details of this case, the vast majority of
these cases seem to be due to mistakes on how the companies set up their PP
accounts. PP needs to deal with fraud, and it can be hard to tell the
difference between donations for a product to be launched sometime in the far
future and a scam. I think the best practice is to get in touch with PP
_before_ accepting nearly $300k and make sure they're expecting the money and
understand the situation.

Statements like "PayPal, which is ultimately owned by Glenn Greenwald backer
Pierre Omidyar ..." which are pretty obviously false (Omidyar owns <10% of the
company) make me further skeptical of this article.

------
DanBC
This is a lousy article that adds nothing (but unsourced speculation) over the
Protonmail page that it links to here: [https://protonmail.ch/blog/paypal-
freezes-protonmail-campaig...](https://protonmail.ch/blog/paypal-freezes-
protonmail-campaign-funds/)

------
campuscodi
Stop using PayPal for fund raising already. Haven't we gone through enough of
these stories yet?

------
knodi
Why doesn't some company with a frozen account by paypal, sue the shit out
paypal???

~~~
jason_slack
I've often wondered this too. It seems to me that more times than not Paypal
freezes an account on a "whim". Almost like they are unsure if they would or
wouldn't face legal ramifications later so they just freeze it to be safe.
People backlash they unfreeze but at the end of the day they have suffered
nothing except people being mad at them...

~~~
brazzy
It seems to you like that because you never hear about the many instances
where Paypal freezes accounts for actually fraudulent transactions.

~~~
jason_slack
No, no I surely know they do freeze for valid reasons. You are right, we
usually dont hear about those instances.

------
diafygi
[http://www.cryptolaw.org/cls2.htm#us_exp_1101](http://www.cryptolaw.org/cls2.htm#us_exp_1101)

> On 7 January 2011, a minor amendment was made to the EAR (Federal Register
> Vol. 76, No. 5, p. 1059). Publicly available mass-market encryption object
> code software (with symmetric key length exceeding 64 bits), and publicly
> available encryption object code of which the corresponding source code
> falls under License Exception TSU (i.e., when the source code is publicly
> available), are no longer subject to the EAR. The amendment includes some
> minor specific revisions.

Since ProtonMail is javascript crypto, their encryption source code is
available and therefore is allowed, right?

~~~
x1798DE
While I am firmly in the "ProtonMail is snake oil" camp, this is obviously a
stupid move on PayPal's part (why are people even still using them?). Even if
the old idiotic export control laws were in place (they are not, and Paypal
should know that, since it uses TLS and doesn't check the physical location of
the counterparties before negotiating an encrypted session with them), it's
not even clear to me that ProtonMail would be subject to them, since they are
based in Switzerland (assuming their technology was developed in Switzerland).
Are they even US citizens?

~~~
DanBC
See also Paypal blocking anything vaguely connected to Cuba.

I live in England. Let's say I want to go to see something about the Buena
Vista Social Club, and that it is held in London. (London, England).

I am not allowed to use PayPal to pay, because Cuba.

People have tried and failed to buy dresses that are called "cuba".

~~~
xenophonf
That actually makes sense. Paypal is subject to U.S. embargoes of Cuba, Iran,
Syria, etc. Yeah, it's kind of stupid to just do a pattern match, but until we
invent A.I. strong enough to figure out when "Buena Vista Social Club" means
London and not Havana, it's probably smarter to dedicate scarce resources to
handling exceptions to the pattern match.

------
aman_abhishk
When people ask me why bitcoins are needed in this world, I will cite this as
another example. Whether ProtonMail is able to provide what it claims is
irrelevant, the fact that a few people decide how I spend My money is as
outrageous as it could be. #Wikileaks

------
Zaephyr
Sure feels like money has been privatized by EMV & PP. I guess I'm going to
have to go figure out Bitcoin and Dogecoin one of these days.

(I realise that the issue is actually money transmitting)

------
drivingmenuts
The thing that bothers me is that a company would consider itself the enforcer
of The Law. While it is incumbent on any company to obey said Law, it's the
government's job to enforce it.

So, rather than shut down an account, since PayPal doesn't necessarily have
the details, they should just bundle up what they think is the incriminating
evidence, toss it over the wall to the US Attorney and ask "This legal, bro?"
If yes, done. If not, then the government can toss it back over the wall and
say "Shut it down, dawg."

We might have better-considered laws if the government actually had to deal
with half the consequences of passing said laws.

