Over six months ago a lot of payment services, including Paypal, Mastercard, Amazon, Bank of America and Visa decided that they would block donations to the group WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is a non-profit organization dedicated to uncovering secrets and leaking them to the world at large. Their biggest headlines came from releases about the Iraq War and Guantanamo Bay, making them less than a favorite of governments everywhere. WIthout these payment options, WikiLeaks says they’ve lost $15 million in support, and they need the money simply to keep the organization running.
Last week, WikiLeaks said it was planning to take three of those companies, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, to court if they didn’t lift the ban within the next six days, and they have, at least temporarily lifted the ban. WikiLeaks complaint argues that the three companies have violated the EU Treaty by abusing their financial power to hurt another group. The companies all argue that WikiLeaks violates their terms of service, so they are well within their rights to deny them payment.
Interestingly enough, despite the fact that the ban has lifted, none of the companies have actually responded directly to the legal complaint. WikiLeaks’ payment service, DataCell, says:
We choose to interpret this, as that Visa and Mastercard has in fact given in to our demand that the payment services was reinstated. In other words DataCell is happy to report that we are now able again to process donations to Wikileaks (and that we in general are able to receive payments via international Credit cards for DataCell’s professional services).