In the name of Allah, the Merciful to all, the Compassionate

This isn’t well-known, so you should probably share this with your friends, family… Really anyone who has used PayPal in connection with a website providing online content. On July 1st, 2015, Paypal will update its TOS agreement… to take away any and all intellectual rights to any content you provide online. If you use Paypal or accept PayPal, they will attempt to take ownership of any online content you add to your business or website. Read this easily-overlooked section of the new PayPal TOS:

Amendment to the PayPal User Agreement

Intellectual Property We are adding a new paragraph to section 1.3., which outlines the license and rights that you give to us and the PayPal Group (see paragraph 12 below for the definition of “PayPal Group”) to use content that you post for publication using the Services. A similar paragraph features in the Privacy Policy, which is removed by the addition of this paragraph to the User Agreement. The new paragraph at section 1.3 reads as follows:

“When providing us with content or posting content (in each case for publication, whether on- or off-line) using the Services, you grant the PayPal Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against the PayPal Group, its sub-licensees or assignees. You represent and warrant that none of the following infringe any intellectual property right: your provision of content to us, your posting of content using the Services, and the PayPal Group’s use of such content (including of works derived from it) in connection with the Services.”

We’ve covered this sort of corporate overreach for a while now, what with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a secret agreement that would greatly strengthen the power of corporations over consumers and even governments; multi-national businesses are working with governments to take control of internet usage, regulations, and even local government utilities through international treaties like the TPP. The TPP is being secretly being constructed, without public or legislative consult, and is a massive outline of future controls by businesses on many aspects of your life.

The fact is, the only reason they kept the TPP secret was because they KNOW that the average person like you or I will be harmed. They can’t even give it a political spin, so they’d rather not have to even discuss it. Search online for more information on the TPP, and check WikiLeaks for information on what little has been leaked about this attack on our freedoms.

It looks like PayPal has decided to work against our interests too; you really have to ask what sort of info they would be interested in obtaining “non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future”, and just how they hope to profit from it.

By being purposefully all-encompassing when speaking about “content or posting content (in each case for publication, whether on- or off-line) using the Services”, we have to understand that it could start stealing the consumer’s data for their own profit anywhere at all, whether it is sent directly to them, or while “using” their services… Which could mean simply having Paypal on your website would give them access to and ownership of it.

Paypal looks ready to confiscate your online content, and your business if you let them; as with most tech businesses, they won’t “be evil” until they become the huge monopolistic corporations that everybody has to use because there is no close rival.  Be vigilant.

Source: Anonymous