How Amazon, PayPal and eBay are Financing Hate

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/how-amazon-paypal-and-ebay-are-financing-hate



Let’s say you’re in the market for a nice white-power hoodie or the latest CD from the hatecore band Brutal Attack. Or perhaps you just want to give some money to your favorite white supremacist outfit. You’ll probably log onto a hate site, say the Holocaust-denying Barnes Review or the racist White Rabbit Radio, and head to their online shopping carts. And there you’ll more than likely find yourself being asked to use a PayPal account to move money to these organizations.

PayPal, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, serves as the main financial tool for transferring money to American hate groups, and it earns fees on every transaction that vary in size according to a variety of factors. Research conducted by the Intelligence Report finds that at least 69 of the hate groups listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) rely on PayPal to help finance their activities.

The irony is that PayPal bans such activity in its terms of service. PayPal says that its policy “regarding payments for goods and services that may promote hate, violence, or intolerance” considers the following factors: 1) The promotion or glorification of hate, violence or intolerance because of a person’s race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation; 2) any graphic portrayal of violence or victims of violence; and 3) previous activity associated with the account holder. It specifically bans the sale of “tems containing Nazi, SS, or Ku Klux Klan symbols, including authentic German WWII memorabilia.”



[Amazon helps sell hate literature like John Derbyshire’s "From the Dissident Right." It also pays commissions to hate sites like VDARE when followers shop at the online retailer via a VDARE portal.]
PayPal has taken steps to stop some hate sites from using its services. The largest and oldest white supremacist Web forum, Stormfront, had its PayPal account yanked some years ago for violation of its policy. Similarly, the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network (VNN), whose motto is “No Jews. Just Right,” no longer is allowed to use PayPal. PayPal can be so vexing to white supremacists that an entire post on VNN tells readers how to evade its policies by creating anonymous accounts.