Is Paypal compatible with software freedom?
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I'm a little unclear as to whether Paypal is compatible with the free software philosophy. It seems that both Trisquel and the FSF will accept Paypal for donations, although perhaps that is just out of pragmatism?
If it isn't ethical, why and are there any reasonable alternatives for online payments/shopping?
Yeah, that's pragmatism. PayPal doesn't work without proprietary JavaScript code. The best alternative widely available right now is Bitcoin. Note: it's not anonymous. GNU Taler would be better if it catches on.
Ok. So, is the usage of non-free JS the main reason, or is there anything else?
That's the reason it's incompatible with software freedom. But note that Paypal is also a company which leaves you dependent on them financially, just like credit cards, so that's another important issue. Some people have been denied use of services like credit card transactions and PayPal because the state wanted these companies to do so. There's also the fact that transactions are not anonymous, so that's bad for privacy.
Gnu taler. Does it not require legislation if gnu taler should become a method of payment? If taler makes it more difficult for seller to trick authorities, why should seller use it?
Because "tricking authorities" (i.e. not paying taxes owed) is highly illegal? Taler isn't meant for drug dealers, you know.
You're also framing this as a hypothetical, which is inappropriate. Most businesses already accept credit card and debit card payments. The government can track those easily.
To my knowledge gnutaler is something nobody uses, correct? Then next step is, why not? I know, I want to use gnutaler because gnutaler limits the amount of data seller gets about buyer regarding a transaction. Why do sellers not use gnutaler? Likely because, they, if they knew about gnutaler, would consider gnutaler one more administrative burden. Even more, which is the impression I have gotten, authorities would get a more effective way of assessing sellers' taxes. A more effective tax assessment, likely a lot of shops would want to avoid. That is why I think, gnutaler has to be rolled out by legislation. Because not enough people will start use gnutaler pressuring shops to use gnutaler.
> You're also framing this as a hypothetical
I do not understand this sentence.
> is highly illegal? Taler isn't meant for drug dealers
Being illegal has never effectively stopped tax fraud from being a major problem and occurrence. Tax fraud applies about legal goods. I am not aware, tax fraud is a matter of importance about illegal goods.
How will you get people, meaning buyers, to use gnutaler? Do you think it is enough to tell people about gnutaler? Do you think shops will start using gnutaler if they got to know about gnutaler? If gnutaler is less costly to shops, than other digital methods of payments, maybe they will.
> To my knowledge gnutaler is something nobody uses, correct? Then next step is, why not?
Because it's new and they don't know about it, or they don't want to be early adopters.
> Being illegal has never effectively stopped tax fraud from being a major problem and occurrence.
The tax fraud we're talking about here is literally stealing sales taxes. I assume the "fraud" you're referring to is legal ways to avoid payin taxes by using loopholes. These are not the same thing.
> stealing sales taxes
I am referring to the case, where a shop has an income from a sale, but does not tell the authorities about it.
> "fraud" you're referring to is legal ways
No, if you act legally it cannot be fraud. One part eliminates the other.
https://taler.net/videos/sha2017taler.webm
I got the wrong idea about how effective taxing of a shop's received gnutaler payments will be. Regarding effectiveness of taxing of received gnutaler payments, it equals any other well known method of payment.
In that case, gnutaler could get commonly used, if it is a lower priced system for shops to use and providing better privacy for buyers.
To me the most important service paypal provides, is their purchase protection. The purchase protection is included in the paypal fee.
When I check the buyer's fee, it is about 5%. I do not know how paypal is able to provide purchase protection within this fee. Either few people get to use purchase protection or paypal's handling of people's purchase protection demands must be shallow. Maybe seller pays a significantly higher fee, than buyer.
Gnutaler does not have a built in purchase protection. Regarding buying items, I would not use gnutaler over paypal, if gnutaler provides no purchase protection. According to gnutaler, purchase protection would have to be provided by a system, which would not be a part of gnutaler. Can a gnutaler payment fee, which include purchase protection, be not more expensive, than a paypal payment fee?
If sender and receiver regarding a gnutaler payment trust each other, they can transfer money with same level of privacy as a cash transaction.
Stallman does not buy items from internet shops? My knowledge is, if he cannot pay cash, he does not buy it. Gnutaler payments would not change that? Because the shop would keep a record of Stallman's data. Address, date and price.
> To me the most important service paypal provides, is their purchase protection. The purchase protection is included in the paypal fee.
That's a burden to businesses, not a benefit.
> Regarding buying items, I would not use gnutaler over paypal, if gnutaler provides no purchase protection.
Cash doesn't give you "purchase protection". Do you refuse to use cash? It's exactly what GNU Taler is supposed to be like.
If you trust a business little enough to not be willing to give cash to them, then don't give cash to them. But the kind of business that would just take your money and run would be an illegal business, which is not what GNU Taler is designed for.
> Stallman does not buy items from internet shops? My knowledge is, if he cannot pay cash, he does not buy it. Gnutaler payments would not change that?
What? No, of course that would change it. He would be able to make his payments anonymously. That's what he's after.
> Because the shop would keep a record of Stallman's data. Address, date and price.
In-store pick-up. We have it at Walmart, as do most other stores.
Even failing that, he can ask for the package to be delivered to a friend's mailbox, then get it from his friend later. And don't forget about digital downloads, e.g. e-books and music files.
This is of course assuming the purchase can be made without proprietary JavaScript code. Unfortunately, that usually isn't the case. But that's a separate issue.
>That's a burden to businesses, not a benefit.
Many people are not going to buy if there is no purchase protection. Seller having to pay a
fee to provide purchase protection is fine for seller if it increases his sales significantly.
>Cash doesn't give you "purchase protection".
If I buy in a shop, I get to investigate the item I want to buy before I pay.
>exactly what GNU Taler is supposed to be
I am not sure, you are right.
I think gnutaler would want you to use their payment system to buy items from shops on the internet. If not
that would limit the distribution of the use of gnutaler. Again why I think gnutaler should have
a purchase protection service.
>If you trust a business little enough to not be willing to give cash to them, then don't give cash to them.
Which I do not. I do not buy, if I do not get purchase protection. I think a lot of people behaves like me.
What I say is, it would be a mistake to introduce gnutaler, not having a gnutaler purchase protection
service ready, because the lack of a gnutaler purchase protection service will limit the number of
gnutaler users significantly.
>take your money and run would be an illegal
This assertion is the result of your chain of arguments. You say, gnutaler should be nothing more than
a service similar to cash. Only use gnutaler, if you would use cash. That is where I disagree what
gnutaler should be. I think gnutaler should be a payment service, you would select to buy items from shops
on the internet. Which requires a purchase protection service.
>not what GNU Taler is designed for.
If that is correct, I think gnutaler has made a mistake. For the beforementioned reason.
>from internet shops
When I wrote about items bought from a shop on the internet, it was implied, the items would have
to be shipped to the buyer.
>course that would change it.
I do not know exactly what pieces of information Stallman resents to give a shop on the internet, if
he buys an item. I know it is the surveillance part, he resents. I assume, he will not inform
seller about financial data and address, because he does not want seller to be able to have a
record on him on these data. I also think, Stallman does not want seller to have a record on
what he has bought. About items which have to be shipped, Stallman will have to inform about his
name and address. And of cource seller will know what he has bought. That is why I think Stallman
will not use gnutaler to buy items from shops on the internet.
>he can ask for the package to be delivered to a friend's mailbox
If you use another persons name and address, you stop sellers survaillance and profiling of
you. But the person, who is the proxy, gets subject to the surveillance and profiling. That may
have unwanted consequences for the proxy person. You should not ask another person to be a
proxy regarding any major part of your shopping on the internet.
>e-books and music files
Regarding all kinds of data and media files, gnutaler would be very good. Will seller be allowed
to sell media files paid by gnutaler? Maybe not. I think surveillance of the buyer is an
important part of the concept of selling media. The owner of the media may want to be able to
identify who is using the media they sell. In that case, gnutaler payment is not going to be
accepted by those having the rights to a given piece of media.
Privacy-wise, GNU Taler is like cash:
When you pay with Taler, your identity does not have to be revealed. Just like payments in cash, nobody else can track how you spent your electronic money. However, you obtain a legally valid proof of payment.
https://taler.net
Thanks to the proof of payment, the purchased good can indeed be delivered anywhere close to your home, for instance to a shop (I believe Amazon partners with shops to have such a system in France), and you can prove you are the buyer, while remaining anonymous.
Now, shipping to the address of a friend is fine too: not only it does not help building a profile of your friend (like you pretend) but it turns it harder to build a profile of your friend: she (probably) does not want the product, you do. In other words, that practice generates noise in the data used to build the profile.
I am pretty sure Stallman would tell you all that too. He uses the same kind of arguments when he justifies why he sometimes asks people to lend him their cell phones.
> Many people are not going to buy if there is no purchase protection.
Not going to buy from merchants they don't trust. No one on the face of the planet is concerned that Walmart is going to take their money and run off, and if that did happen, they would just sue them. The same goes for Amazon, Best Buy. PayPal's purchase protection is only necessary for people who you can't hold accountable either because you can't identify them or because they operate in some country that makes it impossible. If a hub for buying from random others wants, Ebay for example, it's very simple to just arrange to have the e-cash sent to them and then route that through their own system which does have purchase protection (in the case of ebay, that would incidentally be PayPal). The only ones you need to trust are those who run the service.
> If I buy in a shop, I get to investigate the item I want to buy before I pay.
To an extent. A lot of packaging can't be opened up, and some things you just can't check. If you use cash at Walmart to buy a toaster, and it turns out that the toaster is faulty and stops working 5 minutes after you plug it in, your only recourse is policies that either Walmart or the manufacturer has in place to make up for that incident. So you have to trust either Walmart or the manufacturer.
>delivered anywhere close to your home, for instance to a shop
My experience in europe is, the shop on the internet requires you to tell name and address.
In which case seller has enough data to surveil and profile you. If the item is shipped to
a shop, where you then go fetching it, you may be able to use an incorrect name and address,
because sometimes, when you fetch the item, you only have to tell a package number.
>it does not help building a profile of your friend (like you pretend) but it turns it harder to build a profile of your friend
If the shop uses surveillance and profiling software it will do profiling. The profiling will be inaccurate because seller likely does not know he is linking his data to the wrong
person. A persons profiling being inaccurate may be favorable or not for the person in
question. It depends.
> practice generates noise in the data used to build the profile
Because seller does not know his data is not correct, he will act on the data as if his profiling
is useful. The proxy person may experience disadvantages on that account. Should the
inaccurate data have the effect you say, it would require seller to know his data is inaccurate.
>buy from merchants they don't trust.
If well known shops in usa are reliable, it is nice. Even among well known shops in europe, I
would rather not display that level of trust. Even more if I buy from a shop located in
another country. If you have no purchase protection and seller decides to not do what you
what him to do, you have two options. The court system. Slow, expensive if you lose and
bureaucratic. Second option is filing a complaint at the consumer authority. It is not
expensive. It is slow. Slower if it is a complaint about a seller located in another country.
If you win, seller can choose not to comply.
A system like paypal's purchase protection is fast. If you win the complaint you will get
your money.
>is going to take their money and run off
Paypal's purchase protection can be useful in cases, which are not about crimes and
fraud too.
>PayPal's purchase protection is only necessary for people who you can't hold accountable either because you can't identify them or because they operate in some country that makes it impossible.
Disagreements may occur also about shops you would not expect to be a problem.
> Ebay for example, it's very simple to just arrange to have the e-cash sent to them and then route that through their own system which does have purchase protection (in the case of ebay, that would incidentally be PayPal).
You say, you can get paypal's purchase protection without having a paypal account?
>To an extent.
That is correct.
> My experience in europe is, the shop on the internet requires you to tell name and address.
That has nothing whatsoever to do with payment method. Just because a shop makes that their policy doesn't mean it has to be that way.
> Even among well known shops in europe, I would rather not display that level of trust.
So, I take it you never use a credit card, and especially never a debit card, right? You insist on paying only in cash, and only after receiving goods. That is the only behavior which is consistent with what you are saying here. If so, I can tell you right now that almost everyone I know is perfectly willing to entrust their credit card information to Walmart, and those who think they aren't actually are; that's necessary because of the way credit cards work. Credit cards and debit cards are both far more popular than cash in the store I work at.
Besides this, I must say that there's a fantastic irony here. You refuse to trust even well-known, major stores to not scam you, and yet you put your trust in a different company (PayPal) to act as a middle-man and provide "purchase protection". This makes no sense whatsoever.
> You say, you can get paypal's purchase protection without having a paypal account?
PayPal's purchase protection is not protecting you from Ebay. It's protecting you from sellers that are using Ebay. PayPal can't protect you from Ebay because Ebay owns PayPal. So it makes no difference if Ebay just offers you that exact same protection directly rather than routing it through PayPal. So, since you have to trust Ebay anyway, all you have to do is send e-cash to Ebay and let them handle everything else. If you need a refund, they can just send e-cash back to you.
>So, I take it you never use a credit card
How did you reach that conclusion? I have not said, I refuse to tell name and address
to seller. Credit cards in europe, like paypal, provides an option to make a claim
against seller. The legal quality on how these protests are managed, I do not know.
I claim gnutaler does not change the fact, that seller can do profiling if he has proper
software. Stallman opposes surveillance and profiling. That is why I think gnutaler does
not enable Stallman to buy items from shops on the internet. We do not know what he
would say.
>That has nothing whatsoever to do with payment method.
Which I have not claimed. It was about profiling. In europe it is commonly required to
inform your name and address, if you buy something from a shop on the internet. Seller
having this set of data, enables him to make a profile. I wanted to know if gnutaler
changes this. It does not.
>Besides this, I must say that there's a fantastic irony here.
There is an illogical conclusion from your side.
Paypal is not a seller of the items I buy. Paypal manages the payment. Included in
paypal's service is a purchase protection. It is part of what they sell. If it was common knowledge that paypal's purchase protection is a scam and does not work for buyer, I would not use paypal. Several times I have bought from fraudulent sellers. I got my money back filing a paypal purchase protection complaint. My experience is, paypal purchase protection works. But I do not trust them to be highly qualified on consumer law and would not be surprised would paypal make a wrong decision in a purchase protection case.
>PayPal's purchase protection is not protecting you from Ebay.
I have not said so. Ebay says, if you do not make a paypal payment, you can
make not complaint to ebay about seller.
>Ebay owns PayPal.
What is the relevance? In a dispute paypal looks on the data and makes a decision.
>e-cash to Ebay and let them handle everything else
Can you provide some documentation? I do not know of this option.
I claim gnutaler does not change the fact, that seller can do profiling if he has proper software. Stallman opposes surveillance and profiling. That is why I think gnutaler does not enable Stallman to buy items from shops on the internet.
You are wrong. Here is for instance what RMS says at 2:18:11 of http://dcc.ufmg.br/~lcerf/rms_en.webm (talk he gave May 29th this year):
So I can't use Bitcoins to do the thing I most wanna do, which is pay stores and publishers anonymously. That's why we developed GNU Taler. Taler is not a crypto-currency. Taler is a payment system for payments denominated in, well, could be dollars or reais or whatever. And it's anonymous for the one who pays.
Then there is the shipping problem, which is separate from the payment problem. Shipping to a nearby place, such as a physical store taking a commission, is an existing solution. Since GNU Taler emits a legally valid proof of payment, it would be the document to present to get the good.
> I have not said, I refuse to tell name and address
to seller.
I wasn't talking about that, I was talking about the fact that the whole way credit cards and debit cards work revolves around trust of whoever you're buying from. You do understand how it works, right? You give your credit card information to someone. You have to trust that they are going to perform the transaction they say they will, and do nothing else with that information. That's why when you see a shady website online asking for your credit card information, you don't give it to them.
Yeah, there are laws to protect you. But there are equally good laws to protect you if you're using cash. So if you're OK with the trust required to use credit cards, it's logically inconsistent to not be OK with the trust required to use cash or e-cash. Heck, the latter two easily involve less trust, because the worst that can happen isn't identity theft, it's just a criminal not sending you the goods you paid for.
> Can you provide some documentation? I do not know of this option.
Could you please stop jumbling together ideas and hypotheticals with present reality? I never said that Ebay supports this. I said they easily could. That's up to them. The same goes for other stores. Heck, it could even be made into a feature of PayPal.
This is a constant theme in this thread from you. So let me spell this out:
"Purchase protection". has. NOTHING. to do with GNU Taler. If you want to buy this service from someone, they can accept and route any payment method they want to support. Yes, that includes GNU Taler. It also includes credit cards, debit cards, Bitcoin, cash, bottle caps... any payment method they want to support. It's not just a secondary issue, it's completely irrelevant to GNU Taler.
>So, I take it you never use a credit card, and especially never a debit card, right? You insist on paying only in cash, and only after receiving goods.
This is
>Could you please stop jumbling together ideas and hypotheticals
>I wasn't talking about that
Yes, you were.
>So, I take it you never use a credit card, and especially never a debit card, right? You insist on paying only in cash, and only after receiving goods
>So, since you have to trust Ebay anyway, all you have to do is send e-cash to Ebay and let them handle everything else
Which ebay specifically does not support. Then why mention it?
>"Purchase protection". has. NOTHING. to do with GNU Taler
Nor does my post say. In my post I claim a gnutaler payment system with no purchase
protection is such a drawback compared to payment systems, which provide a purchase
protection, that I believe it will significantly limit how many will use gnutaler.
None of us can determine if my claim is correct. It would require a marketing
research.
You engage in odd arguments, saying if you do not trust seller then you cannot trust paypal's
purchase protection.
You can get into a dispute with a big known company as well. If you have paypal purchase
protection and you believe you rightfully have a claim against seller, two entities must
fail before you have to file a complaint to a consumer authority. Seller and paypal.
And I think paypal will have a more objective view on a dispute than seller, because
paypal is not part of the dispute.
You are welcome to have a list of sellers you trust and are prepared to buy items from
with no purchase protection. I think a lot of buyers will not act like that.
>it's completely irrelevant to GNU Taler
In a gnutaler video they are asked if gnutaler provides a purchase protection. Gnutaler
answers no and says if someone wants to, they can make a purchase protection
service. I know of no such service and I think gnutaler would be better of, if
a purchase protection would be integrated as an option in a gnutaler payment.
If there is no purchase protection, preferable integrated in gnutaler, when
gnutaler is introduced, then it will have a significantly negative impact on how many
will use gnutaler. I think gnutaler wants to be widely used and wants to be prefered
to other payment systems.
That is why I think it is relevant for gnutaler.
You are unable to react on my claim.
People who demands purchase protection will select paypal over gnutaler. The number
of people who demands purchase protection is big. Therefore it would be a mistake
to introduce gnutaler, with no purchase protection ready.
>there are equally good laws to protect you if you're using cash. So if you're OK with the trust required to use credit cards, it's logically inconsistent to not be OK with the trust required to use cash or e-cash
You are unable to understand, a purchase protection system like the one paypal provides
adds another layer of unbureaucratic dispute resolution to your buy.
> Nor does my post say. In my post I claim a gnutaler payment system with no purchase protection is
That's your problem. You're conflating e-cash with payment services. They are not the same. You physically cannot have "purchase protection" from e-cash. It's impossible.
I'm not going to continue arguing with a brick wall at this point. If you want to reject GNU Taler because you don't understand what it is, go right ahead and keep using credit cards and PayPal. No one is stopping you.
the shop on the internet requires you to tell name and address.
In France, many Internet shops propose the delivery in physical shops nearby. It is even cheaper. The buyer was identified when she paid though. GNU Taler solves that privacy problem.
Should the inaccurate data have the effect you say, it would require seller to know his data is inaccurate.
Profile-based recommendations (and the likes) are constantly assessed. If the accuracy of the profiles decrease, it is discovered. It looks like you expect a solution where, at once, all profiling techniques become obsolete. If you have such a solution, tell it!
>If the accuracy of the profiles decrease, it is discovered.
We do not know the algorithms. I doubt, they are able to filter items which are bought
in the name of a proxy person. I do not say, people should not act as a proxy person,
but they should know what effects it may have.
>you expect a solution where, at once, all profiling techniques become obsolete
I do not expect one.
>you have such a solution
No, I do not. My post was about showing, that gnutaler cannot work as a tool against profiling.
And if gnutaler does not provide a purchase protection system, people often will have a
reason to not use gnutaler. I am in favor of gnutaler, but I think gnutaler should provide a purchase protection too.
My post was about showing, that gnutaler cannot work as a tool against profiling.
It can. It uses what is known (for 34 years) as "blind signature" to guarantee the anonymity of the buyer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature
See https://grothoff.org/christian/taler2016space.pdf to read more about GNU Taler.
>gnutaler cannot work as a tool against profiling
I phrased it poorly. Paypal and credit cards likely do profiling of the buyer. If you use gnutaler,
then their profiling stops.
But the profiling the seller does if seller gets buyers name and address, gnutaler cannot stop.
For the nth time: the seller does not need the buyers name. Thanks to GNU Taler, the seller will get paid and the buyer can prove she is the one who paid (for instance at the nearby shop where the good was shipped) without ever revealing her identity. Except for sellers making additional money by selling the customer personal information (an unethical activity), sellers do not want to manage such sensitive information anyway. It is a cost (security audits and so on).
So you can keep on writing about "*if* seller gets buyers name and address" but those are no argument against Taler. It would be like saying that the Tor browser does not make users anonymous because "*if* a Tor user writes 'hello, I am John Doe'" then he is not anonymous anymore: that is true but that user does not have to identity himself and the entailed loss of anonymity is in no way Tor's fault.
On a side note, I found your misuse of commas throughout this post to be such an extent that it made a lot of the post difficult to read. It's much easier to read a sentence which is missing a comma that it should have than it is to read a sentence which has commas where it shouldn't. Just a suggestion.
I don't have a credit card because I'm already being screwed by the lies-based anarcho-capitalist criminal-friendly citizen-abusing quasi-democratic citizen-enslaving Dutch state.
I just pay Trisquel though automated SEPA bank transfer.
Like onpon4 already wrote, Paypal isn't really compatible with software freedom. Plus, they seem to be blocking accounts for political reasons or "US regulations". For exmaple, I don't know if this has changed or not, but I remember reading that Paypal didn't work for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, while it could have been accessed by Israeli settlers living in the West Bank.
Besides, by using Paypal, there's one more party that can observe your shopping habits.
Using Paypal might add some security though - as you're not giving your credit card details to multiple sites and therefore, you don't have to worry too much about their security standards. On the other hand, Paypal accounts can get hacked too.
At the end of the day however, you just depend on how the website accepts payments. I might like ideas behind GNU Taler or Bitcoin, but whenever Paypal is the only way to send payment, there isn't any choice really. For example, that's how I've donated to NoScript several times.
I wish there was an alternative though, an alternative accepted by the majority of the websites.
The future will probably be crypterium, have you heard of it yet? Great people on this project. You should help them. It will not be like bitcoin, you will have distributed banking all over the world. It is estonia based, and api will be open source. If you have skills, there you will find a place. There's a competition for speeches on 2018. they raised plenty of dollars for this. It is based on Old Estonia knowledge. They where the only country ruled by the nazis that had knowledge to mantain they're currency and prosperity and not became sucked by nazis. Great tip.
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