Tuesday 25 December 2012

PayPal Bans Hosting Provider PRQ

PRQ, the infamous ISP created by Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm of The Pirate Bay, has been nuked by PayPal.

PayPal ended their relationship with the so-called bullet-proof hoster by freezing the company's funds for up to 6 months. On PayPal's advice PRQ opened a second account to get by while the dispute was being sorted out, but, according to TorrentFreak, PayPal seized those funds too.

This isn't the first time Paypal has closed accounts of companies providing services that are popular with Bittorrent users. In June, Paypal banned TorGuard, a company that offers VPN and proxy services. In the case of PRQ however, things are more complicated than that. PRQ has long a long history of defending the freedom of speech of its users and had as such gained a reputation as a safe harbor for whistle-blowers and political activists.

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