Yet another phone call was made to PayPal, this time with a hysterical agent who told us we were violating their TOS by being “high risk”, the exact opposite of which was told to us by Jason Billian two years before. It was the exact same email that we had received two years before.
A few hours later, we received an email saying that our “appeal had been denied”, even though we were honesty just trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He was confused, and said he would escalate the ticket. We immediately called PayPal, and spoke to an AUP agent who told us that looking through the notes on our account, it was clear that we were already authorized. We couldn’t believe this was happening again! Jason and I had a great conversation via phone, where he explained that we were authorized, that PayPal had made a mistake, and not to worry.įast forward two years, almost to the day of our reinstatement upon logging into our PayPal account, we see that our account has been closed, and are provided a link to a page that says that all file-sharing software/sites/apps and news groups require authorization. Both Misty (PayPal AUP escalation agent) and Jason Billian (PayPal’s Digital Goods Policy Manager - Brand Risk) told us we were authorized to continue accepting donations through PayPal. PayPal both emailed us and called us to say that they had made a mistake with the denial of authorization.
#SOULSEEKQT BANNED DOWNLOAD FREE#
The Kafkaesque Battle of Soulseek and PayPal, and Why Free Speech Defenders Should be Worried About Payment Networks She also wrote an article about it, which you can find here: After much obfuscation, they denied our petition for authorization, and told us we could not appeal this decision.Īt that point in time, the fabulous Rainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped in to help us to revive our PayPal account. They sent us an extensive “application” form, which we completed. Though Soulseek is 100% free, and is ad & spyware free, they told us we needed authorization to continue accepting donations through PayPal. The gist was that after the 15 years we had been with PayPal, their policy had changed regarding file sharing sites and news groups. We really thought we were done with this shit.įor those of you who have been with us for a while, you may remember the unexplained shut-down of our PayPal account in October of 2015. This is the moment where we explain what’s going down between Soulseek and PayPal. You may have been wondering what’s been going on with our donations since February, as you’ve not been able to make any donations through PayPal since that time. It’s you that keep us going, both emotionally and through your generous support. We want to preface this by letting you know that we’re eternally grateful for all of the support that you’ve shown us over the years.