Paypal Blocks VPN and UnoTelly Payments

Paypal is the default setting for a lot of people and companies when it comes to online payments, easy to implement and with a safety net of features people feel comforted by while doing online banking. With Paypal’s purchase of digital money company Xoom, it seemed like Paypal wanted to take all the money but they’ve now started blocking payments using the Candian company UnoTelly.

Under Paypal’s Acceptance use policy states that it cannot be used to send payments “for items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy, or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction”. UnoTelly offers smartDNS and VPN access, techniques which have been used to remove geo-blocks from websites, a technique that lets you watch or use sites that are often blocked in particular areas of the world. Copyright holders have often argued that VPN networks could be used to bypass copyright, enabling you to access and watch videos through services like Netflix in regions where the show is blocked.

The problem with this decision is that a lot of people, such as large businesses, use VPN’s for legitimate reasons and putting a blanket ban on VPN users making purchases through Paypal would surely only end with the services use declining.