# PayPal Demands That Seafile Monitor Customers Uploaded Files



## DomainBop (Jun 18, 2016)

PayPal is apparently turning into big brother and demanded that Seafile monitor files that customers upload to its hosted Seafile service as a condition for accepting PayPal.  SeaFile refused and so PayPal will no longer be an option for Seafile services as of tomorrow June 19.


The big question is will PayPal start demanding that other cloud storage providers like Dropbox and hosted OwnCloud, (or regular webhosts or openstack object storage providers for that matter) monitor their customer's files, or is this an isolated incident where some idiot at PayPal confused SeaCloud, a file storage/sync provider, with file sharing sites like YouTube ?


+1 to Seafile for telling PayPal to go eff themselves.


source: https://seafile.de/en/important-infos-about-app-seafile-de-and-licensing-purchases-through-our-web-shops/



> From tomorrow, Sunday June 19th 2016 we are no longer allowed to accept payments via PayPal. PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as all our customers’ files for illegal content. They have also asked us to provide them with detailed statistics about the files types of our customers sync and share on https://app.seafile.de
> 
> 
> Since complying with this demand would violate German / European data protection laws (and also be morally wrong in our opinion) we have declined to comply with this demand.
> ...


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 18, 2016)

I don't know to be honest.  I know there's always two sides of the story and whatnot, but if this is true then this is absolutely ridiculous.  


I'd be interested in hearing Paypal's reasoning behind it.


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## drmike (Jun 18, 2016)

Can't monitor stuff.  That's just immoral digging into crap and then viewing to confirm.


Had to be about piracy.


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## RLT (Jun 18, 2016)

German illegal content USA illegal content or Dutch illegal content? Different things for each so what would it be? In Germany anything Nazi is usually illegal but fine in  the USA.


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## drmike (Jun 18, 2016)

PayPal has dinged VPN companies over piracy and disallowed them to accept PayPal due to piracy.


Bunch of mentions:


https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=paypal+vpn+providers


Considering PayPal is US company, it would be the piracy issue instead of the Nazi one.


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## vampireJ (Jun 19, 2016)

What is seafile and what is it known for / what is its reputation? ie is it like aws but for pirates?


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## DomainBop (Jun 19, 2016)

vampireJ said:


> What is seafile and what is it known for / what is its reputation? ie is it like aws but for pirates?



Seafile is file syncing/storage software (with features similar to Dropbox, Google Drive, or OwnCloud).  The software is offered in two versions: a free community version (open source) and a paid Professional version (the Pro version of the software has a few more features and uses a proprietary license).    Seafile has end-to-end client side encryption and is generally considered much more secure than OwnCloud.


Seafile is available as either self-hosted or SaaS (Seafile's SaaS service uses the pro version).  


Prometeus uses the free open source version of the software to power their IWsea Cloud Storage product.


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## DomainBop (Jun 22, 2016)

> Update 2016/06/22
> 
> 
> Yes, our PayPal account has been re-instated. PayPal called us this afternoon to apologize for the frustration and inconvenience that restricting our PayPal account has caused us. They said they made a mistake in our case. We are not a “high risk business” and sufficiently explained our business model to them when they asked us.
> ...



In the words of Seafile's CEO in an interview with Fortune, it took a public outcry to get PayPal to realize their mistake 



> _“In my opinion, they realized all the waves it caused and they’re trying to do some damage control. They wouldn’t have changed their mind if so many people weren’t yelling. I appreciate the gesture on their part, but for us the trust is gone.”_
> 
> 
> _http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/paypal-seafile-monitoring/_



I'm sure that she is wrong about PayPal just doing damage control because it looks like the 9 people on PayPal's board of directors include some very fine individuals who are noted for looking out for the interests of small business and the little guy.  Most importantly, PayPal's board includes an individual, Dave Dorman who is a noted fierce champion of privacy rights: 


Upstanding Citizens on PayPal's Board of Directors:


David W. Dorman (_former CEO of AT&T, one of the first things he did as AT&T CEO was to enter into an illegal agreement to start secretly handing over customer metadata to the NSA around 2003-2004 which resulted in EFF filing a lawsuit, Hepting v. ATT, against ATT for violations of customer privacy in 2006_)


John J. Donahoe (_former eBay CEO, during his 7 years at the helm he tried to change the company's focus from being a marketplace of small sellers to a marketplace where large retailers could unload their crap while small sellers were treated as second class citizens and got crapped on_)


Jonathan Christodoro, head of Icahn Capital (_which has a long history of  buying stakes in companies and laying off tens of thousands of American workers.  On the plus side for movie lovers, Carl Icahn was one of the inspirations for the character Gordon Gecko_)  


David M. Moffett  (_was CEO of secondary mortgage lender Freddie Mac when the mortgage crisis hit in 2008. Mom and Pop on Main Street got screwed during the housing crisis, and Dave's friends got bailed out_)


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## drmike (Jun 22, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> In the words of Seafile's CEO in an interview with Fortune, it took a public outcry to get PayPal to realize their mistake
> 
> 
> I'm sure that she is wrong about PayPal just doing damage control because it looks like the 9 people on PayPal's board of directors include some very fine individuals who are noted for looking out for the interests of small business and the little guy.  Most importantly, PayPal's board includes an individual, Dave Dorman who is a noted fierce champion of privacy rights:
> ...



4 reasons why I won't be using PayPal in the future.


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## DomainBop (Jun 22, 2016)

drmike said:


> 4 reasons why I won't be using PayPal in the future.



On the positive side their board also includes Pierre Omidyar who put up the initial $250 mill to start 501(c) FirstLookMedia/The Intercept


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## drmike (Jun 22, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> On the positive side their board also includes Pierre Omidyar who put up the initial $250 mill to start 501(c) FirstLookMedia/The Intercept



Omidyar is far from a basket of good.  No soothing feeling from his name being on the positive side.


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