PayPal Bans BitTorrent Friendly Hosting Provider PRQ

[silicon_toad2000]

PRQ, the infamous ISP created by Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm of The Pirate Bay, has been nuked by PayPal. After a fruitful partnership lasting three years, PayPal decided to ruin their relationship with the so-called “bullet-proof” hoster by freezing the company’s funds for up to 180 days. On PayPal’s advice PRQ opened a second account to get by while the dispute was being sorted out, but then without warning PayPal seized those funds too.

While most webhosts go about their day to day business without most people knowing they even exist, Sweden’s PRQ has a habit of making international headlines a few times every year.

The ISP, created in 2004 by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij of The Pirate Bay, usually hits the news due to their business strategy. PRQ’s philosophy says that if a website is legal in Sweden, they will not only host it, but defend it to the end. That has made it a haven for controversial sites that are less welcome elsewhere.

Time and again PRQ’s affiliation with The Pirate Bay and other file-sharing domains has seen the company raided, most recently during early October when authorities hunted down the operators of Tankafetast and Appbucket and took down dozens of sites in the process.

PRQ is known for respecting the privacy of its customers, even going as far as accepting cash in envelopes from website operators requiring the highest levels of protection. However, a decision just taken by PayPal might mean that this archaic method of payment becomes more popular in the months to come.

http://torrentfreak.com/paypal-bans-bittorrent-friendly-hosting-provider-prq-121224/

[GhostShip]

Paypal seem to be acting in a very high handed manner and this is unfortunately not the first time, they are clearly abusing their role as a funds transfer facility, the money is of course not theirs to retain for any length of time let alone 180 days, it seems to me that paypals business model is one based on having a near monopoly for those using ebay and as we all know they are simply the same company using two different names and neither pay the taxes they should be instead they hide behind their claims that being based in Luxembourg means they dont have to pay taxes to anyone else.

It would be pleasing if hundreds of govts arbitrarily froze papals money for 180 days to gain tax revenues.