Early in December, 2010, giant credit card companies Visa and Mastercard chose to stop processing cardholder donations to international whistleblower WikiLeaks. After conducting an investigation into WikiLeaks’ activities, the watchdog’s credit card processing company decided to sue both Visa and Mastercard for damages associated with the processing suspension.
As with PayPal and Amazon’s decisions to suspend any payment to WikiLeaks, the credit card companies defend the decision with the argument that the nature of WikiLeaks’ business may “contravene the Visa operating rules,” which ban customers from “directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal,” according to a Mastercard spokesman. The companies thus reserve the right to refuse
credit and debit card payment processing to anyone they fear may be acting illegally, and in this case, acting against the interests of the United States government.
The decision to sanction the non-profit raised controversy over its legality, as some observers say it appears that Mastercard and Visa bowed to government pressure to bend the rules of their contracts and stop processing payments to WikiLeaks. The move to weaken the watchdog came after it began releasing roughly 250,000 secret and classified U.S. diplomatic cables – the release of which is prohibited by United States’ law – that show U.S. government knowledge of and sometimes collaboration with other governments and international actors in clearly illegal activities.
In response to the decision, the credit card processing company that was handling WikiLeaks’ donations, DataCell, told The Associated Press that it would sue to seek damages from Mastercard and Visa over the decision to block donations. No action to follow up on the threat has been taken. Asked by Visa to investigate WikiLeaks, Norway-based payment processor Teller AS looked into the activities of WikiLeaks’ fundraising arm, Sunshine Press. In mid January it found no evidence of wrongdoing or activity that goes against Visa’s rules, nor laws in Iceland, where Sunshine Press is registered. Visa said it would continue to block donations.
The ongoing controversy shows the important role that third party credit card payment processors can play in protecting the rights of their customers, though the jury is still out on WikiLeaks’ fate.