Pirate Party MEP Helps Draft New Credit Card Company Controls

Dupple writes with this excerpt: "It has become an increasingly large problem that Visa, MasterCard, and Paypal control the valve to any money flow on the planet. Today, the European Parliament established this as a clear problem, and initiated regulation of the companies, limiting and strictly regulating their right to refuse service. The Pirate Party was the initiator of this regulation, following the damaging cutoff of donations to WikiLeaks, after said organization had performed journalism that was embarrassing to certain governments."

Re:Regulation is problematic

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why sometimes the solution is fewer regulations, and more direct solutions.

Somebody has to be the first to mention bitcoin, so I guess it will be me...
Though it might not be the be-all-end-all at least it does solve the abuses of power that can come from governments trying to stop the flow of money between people who actually do want to send money from one person to another.

Re:catch-22

[fredprado]

What they always do. Deny service to those people with credit cards from the countries that want to forbid and allow service to those people with credit cards from the countries that mandate it.

Zombies

[Overzeetop]

You can just clone a corporation by cutting it into two independent pieces. Like a zombie, but eating money instead of brains. And regenerating all the missing parts instantly after cutting it in two. With the right shell structure, you can usually avoid those problems long enough to get new laws written - like waiting around for the food and ammo to run out on your human victims. With enough lawyers, corporations can just hang out until the conditions are right for consolidation of resources. And a feast of brains.

Re:Journalism.....!?

[MightyYar]

The irony is that it was a "true journalist" that accidentally leaked the encryption key to the WikiLeaks archive with the embassy cables. WikiLeaks up to that point seemed to know their limitations and was working with established journalists to release the cables in a controlled fashion.

Re:Not "American fundamentalist moralism"

[mrbester]

There's also the issue that you can donate to the KKK using Visa but can't donate to Wikileaks because Visa have arbitrarily deemed them "guilty" of some crime, most likely at the behest of US Govt.

Re:Not "American fundamentalist moralism"

[Christian Engstrom]

No, it was the payment service providers Visa, MasterCard and PayPal who took the decisions to block, not the Swedish banks.