WikiLeaks credit card payments unblocked -for now

After seven long months, payments via two international credit card firms are again being accepted and processed for controversial whistleblower site WikiLeaks. DataCell, WikiLeaks' credit card processing partner, said Friday (Manila time) that the gateway for payments via Visa and MasterCard appeared to have been opened. "We choose to interpret this, as that Visa and Mastercard has in fact given in to our demand that the payment services was reinstated. In other words DataCell is happy to report that we are now able again to process donations to Wikileaks (and that we in general are able to receive payments via international Credit cards for DataCell's professional services)," DataCell's CEO and COO, Andreas Fink and Olafur Sigurvinsoon, said in a joint statement. They said that, with the development, donations to Wikileaks can be made again at https://donations.datacell.com. Blocked since December Since Dec. 7 last year, DataCell said that it had not been able to process Visa and Mastercard payments or payments by other international credit cards for WikiLeaks. It said that its payment gateway was closed at the time by Teller A/S, the company providing the payment gateway, on direct instructions from Visa and Mastercard. Last June 9, DataCell informed Visa, Mastercard and Teller of the intention to file a complaint to the EU Commission regarding the credit card providers' supposed violation of EU competition regulations. Also, the company planned to initiate a lawsuit in Denmark to claim damages. "Since 9th June 2011, DataCell has not received any substantial answer from the credit card companies, besides confirmations of receipt. However, today we have observed that an alternative payment processor that we have contracted with, has in fact opened the gateway for payments with Visa and Mastercard, and now also for American Express Card payments, which is an option we did not had before," DataCell said. Far from over But it said that the battle is by far not over, as it will still initiate the lawsuit in Denmark to claim damages for the lasst seven months. "We consider it likely that we will file the complaint before the EU Commission," Fink and Sigurvinsson said. For its part, hacktivist group Anonymous —which claimed responsibility for a brief outage of MasterCard's website last month— said that Visa's and MasterCard's move "may be a response to legal pressure from the group or may yet be a slip-up." Visa and MasterCard suffered a DDoS late last year from Anonymous and WikiLeaks supporters for holding back financial donations. MasterCard's site was attacked last June, with the hacker "Ibomhacktivist" claiming that the attack was motivated by MasterCard's suspension of WikiLeaks' ability to accept donations. "MasterCard.com DOWN!!!, thats what you get when you mess with @wikileaks @Anon_Central and the enter community of lulz loving individuals :D," the hacker said in a tweet. But MasterCard spokesperson Jennifer Stalzer said the incident was due to an ISP outage "that impacted multiple users." "MasterCard's corporate, public-facing Website experienced intermittent service disruption, due to a telecommunications/Internet Service Provider outage that impacted multiple users. It is important to note that no cardholder data has been impacted and that cardholders can continue to use their cards securely," she said in an email, The Hacker News reported (http://www.thehackernews.com/2011/06/mastercard-downed-by-isp-not-anonymous.html). — TJD, GMA News