Causing problems for PayPal's service is shortsighted and has a lot of collateral damage. For many small business owners, PayPal is the only viable way to take global payments online. There are a few other payment providers, but their fees are usually much higher than PayPal's, or their payment schedules and API integration are severely limited in comparison. With PayPal I can charge a customer and have the money in my account within a couple of days, plus feel safe that most fraud is going to be stopped at the door.
bear in mind protest can be seen as a way to change a company policy. noone is saying paypal shouldn't exist, but personally i do agree they shouldn't be disallowing payments on behalf of wikileaks.
Agreed, but plain old DDOS against PayPal seems like a great way to get PayPal to upgrade their DDOS defensive measures and not a great way to get them to change their policies. Companies change their policies when their customers become educated about them and the company starts to lose business and look bad in the media as a result.
In this case, Anonymous will achieve making PayPal's website even slower for a while. If they lose customers it'll be for the wrong reasons. Anonymous needs to find a way to educate the public about a company's wrongdoings, not just disrupt the company's service while not making sure everyone knows exactly why that company's service has been disrupted. They seem to have this misguided idea that DDOS = public education and corporate humiliation. That's what I find shortsighted.
Anonymous needs to find a way to educate the public...
Anonymous has its own means and methods which you may or may not agree with.
If you agree that something needs to be done but think there is a better way to do it, then you need to carry it out, enough "armchair quarterback"-ing.
Not causing problems for PayPal is shortsighted and has a lot of collateral damage. It invites other companies to bend to every whim of the federal government(with or without a warrant or subpoena).
Maybe this isn't the way you'd like to go about it. It sure isn't what I had hoped for, but the fact of the matter is, it's time. This needs to happen. And if you hadn't noticed, in the age of the internet, sometimes you have to be loud to be heard.
