MasterCard and Visa are now taking action against VPN providers, according to Swedish payment provider Payson.
Customers of Payson have apparently received an email stating that VPN services are no longer able to accept Visa or MasterCard payments. This, apparently, is due to a very recent change of policy.
Further reading Retailers looking to cut Visa and other 'middlemen' out of the payments loop A revolution on the cards: are the likes of Visa and MasterCard doomed? Yahoo subjected to 12,000 data requests in six months under Prism
"Payson has restrictions against anonymization (including VPN services). As a result Payson can unfortunately no longer give your customers the option to finance payments via their cards (Visa or MasterCard)," said the email.
The policy apparently went into effect on Monday this week, leaving VPN providers up in arms over the decision. One Payson customer - VPN provider iPredator - has already said it is considering legal action to try to force Visa and MasterCard to unblock transactions with them.
In a telephone call with Torrentfreak.com, iPredator founder (and Pirate Bay co-founder) Peter Sunde said the decision is "forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protect their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA [US National Security Agency] can spy even more".
Sunde also said iPredator would now be considering Bitcoin as a replacement funding option moving forwards.
Visa told Computing: "Visa Europe has not been involved in this matter in any way, and has not made any such stipulations to Payson or to any other organisation."
Computing has approached both Mastercard and Payson to qualify the claims further.
