Recently, folks have noticed that PayPal proposed a new Acceptable Use Policy which takes effect on November 3:

…you must adhere to the terms of this Acceptable Use Policy. Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s) as outlined in the User Agreement

So is this for spamming, cleanup, hacking, or for some cause where you’ve made PayPal spend money to fix issues you’ve caused?

LOL.  No:

“You may not use the PayPal service for activities that: involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable…(f) present a risk to user safety or wellbeing, (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation”

So long story short,

• PayPal will judge what you send
• If it doesn’t like it, it will not just cut off service, but levy a $2500 non-appealable fine and take money out of your account

Why are you still using PayPal?

For PayPal president David Marcus commented: “It’s hard for me to openly criticize a company I used to love and gave so much to. But @PayPal’s new AUP goes against everything I believe in.”

Fortunately, it was all a misunderstanding.  I’m sure PayPal doesn’t attempt to muscle it obnoxious power grabs into the marketplace with the idea that it can always say “oops” and retreat when it’s called out.  I’m sure they wouldn’t do that.

And if you believe that, I have a 16GB KVM with unmetered 10Gbps network to sell you for $20/year on a ten-year prepay.

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raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308

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