PayPal's patriotism called into question.

A U.S. Attorney's office has alleged that PayPal violated laws regarding the processing of online gambling payments, and is asking parent company eBay to hand over nine months of the gambling-related earnings in settlement.
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri told eBay that its online payment service violated provisions in the USA Patriot Act between October 2001 and July 2002, according to eBay's annual report, filed Monday with securities regulators. Under the act, it is prohibited to transmit funds known to have come from a criminal offense, or that are intended to promote or support unlawful activities.
The agency is seeking to collect any earnings that PayPal received from online gambling merchants during the nine-month period, as well as interest. Last year, PayPal received 6 percent of its revenue from online gambling, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Quite what the fuck this actually has to do with the Patriot Act, which I thought was supposed to be about combatting terrorism, is something I'm not sure of.

posted by James Russell | 10:57 PM