I think this is totally ridiculous and I think could be fought with Paypal. The service of listing a url of a gambling site has nothing to do with gambling, which is what the law is supposed to prevent. So no gambling site can purchase any services from a US company? So if a guy that owns a gambling site needs a box of paper clips and goes down to Office Max and buys them, is Office Max going to get harrassed for accepting his payment? It's crazy.
Sonicreducer, thats a stupid example (no offense intended). Office max is not going to know and not bothered whether you own a gambling site or not. whereas, when someone submits a site to your(our) directory, it is expected that we check the site out before approving it. so, when you do check the site and know it is related to gambling, then it is your fault if you accept the site. the acceptable policy clearly states you are not directly engaging in gambling activities but you are helping in promoting it by accepting the link in your directory which is illegal in US.
Interesting if you are not a EUA resident, and basicly using paypal Europe you still have to obey this law?
Yes, what people dont realize and sometimes dont understand is, even though paypal has different entities (Paypal USA, Paypal Europe etc..) there is ONLY ONE ACCEPTABLE USAGE POLICY. what this means is, it really does not matter whether you are a US Citizen or a Swiss Citizen or a Citizen of any other country, you will have to obey the Acceptable Usage Policy. There are different privacy policies but only one Acceptable usage policy which is https://www.paypal.com/aup/ if you compare this with the privacy policy, there is no geo differentiation for the AUP like the privacy. in short, yes this law is for all. maybe they may not catch u today or tomorrow, but they will soon. simply because they have to protect themselves from future legal issues. no one should say paypal accepts payments for gambling sites anywhere.
If someone submits their gambling site and pays, however I reject their submission and refund their money (which I have done numerous times), will I be punished with PayPal?
I agree that made no sense at all. ( I had just returned from the pub when I wrote that) I have read the AUP policy though, and I still think you can make an argument that it does not apply to what we are doing as directory owners. Not that Paypal would care.
Very good information, thank you! It would be a disaster to lose my paypal account. Ouch! Thanks for the heads up!
As directory owners, when we accept those sites, we indirectly help them in their promotion. if you check the gambling page it states the text in bold is what we do. receive payments from a person to promote his gambling site. i accept we are not directly interested in what our visitors do, but by accepting these sites we get involved. heard of the long tail?? like that...
I don't think so. Check out US and UK AUPs: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside&ed=gambling https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside&ed=gambling I clearly see that their gambling policy is different under different jurisdictions. UK's AUP policy says: Paypal may think that non-US based directory owners do not have the ability to block gambling site submissions from the US and other areas where gambling is not legal, and that's what may violate their UK AUP policy. It's not that they enfoce the single AUP.
Paypal never allowed any gambling related activity so this was part of their terms and conditions even before the new US law came into practise. I dont think they can reasonably enforce such a rule.
I don't see any mention of this in the thread ... I looked at a couple of the other prohibited activities and found this: Funny this address is not widely posted.
Getting rid of the gambling cat would help but you would still need to weed through the submissions under " entertainment" or others.
Which law are you talking about? Which country are you from? There are so many gambling sites online... you mean they are all illegal?