At the height of its infamy during the release of the Cablegate memos, both Visa and Mastercard cut off all payments going to WikiLeaks citing that their “rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal.” Whether publishing this leaked material is illegal or not is a matter for some debate and has yet to ever be discussed in the courts. However, in response to having their donations blocked, WikiLeaks and its payment processor partner Datacell have announced their intention to sue Visa and Mastercard in the EU.
Visa and Mastercard were not the only services that blocked donations to WikiLeaks, as both Amazon and Paypal did the same thing – but they are not named in the suit. The one service that came to WikiLeaks’ rescue was Flattr which altered its service to be able to send and receive specified donations during the Cablegate furore at least in part to enable WikiLeaks to maintain raising funds.
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