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GBR: Corporate cannabis hypocrisy from eBay and PayPal
3-4-` 07 | pr.Cannazine.co.uk

Online payment giant PayPal is being slammed by the UK cannabis community, for choosing to freeze the financial accounts of many bona-fide law abiding UK companies for little more than selling marijuana seeds.

A commodity which it is legal to sell in the UK and in many countries around the world, whilst in the same instance allowing its online payment service to promote and finance online software piracy.

Many websites and forums across the net carry links to illegal, pirated software which is stored, and downloaded from Rapidshare, and many other sites like it. After making a small Paypal payment the Canna Zine cannabis news portal was able to download some of the largest (and latest) software packages and DVD movies available.

The editor of pro-reform cannabis news portal the Canna Zine (Cannabis News from Canna Zine ) wonders how the online financial services company manages to sound so pious when it comes to dealing with legitimate, tax paying cannabis seed vendors, and yet manage to turn a blind eye to what is an overtly criminal industry. That of online software piracy or "warez."

Warez, relates to the storage and distribution of unauthorised software. Programs like Microsoft Windows Vista, Adobe Fireworks and Microsoft Office, three pieces of software which if you were to buy them from a shop, would cost you close to £1000.

Yet the Canna Zine was able to download these pieces of software from an online "warez" website, for the sake of making a PayPal payment of 4.50 euros, which allows free access to the website for a period of two days, during which time its possible to download unlimited amounts of some of the biggest names in software including the latest PC format games, and also DVD quality movies.

Other price plans available at the website included 1 month at a cost of 6.99 euros, 3 months for 16.99 euros, 6 months access for 29.99 euros, and access for a full year for only 54.99 euros, saving you, according to the website, a massive 35%.

All of the above payments can be made using PayPal.

Parent company eBay are bound to be embarrassed by this. Or are they?

Just one of many adverts which have been displayed on the Canna Zine, one website barred from selling cannabis seeds using PayPal or eBay, which shows eBay actively pursuing the cannabis growing community, and regardless of their "public" anti-cannabis profile.

It wasn't so long ago that it was possible to buy or sell pretty much anything using the global eBay auction sites.

If you view the US based eBay.com its still possible to pick up dangerous items such as pepper sprays and crossbows, which a Norfolk UK man recently found out to his cost, are actually illegal to buy and have shipped to the UK.

When the police arrived to talk to him about the pepper spray, which he said he had bought for his wife's personal protection, they ended up arresting him for growing cannabis. Tough break.

These days however, eBay have stopped the sale of a number of such items here in the UK, and they have also disallowed the sale of cannabis seeds, and any related or suspected cannabis paraphernalia across all of their websites.

Yet on any given day, web surfers will be exposed to adsense adverts served by Google, (the ones which read "Ads by Google") which actually advertise cannabis growing equipment for sale on eBay.

One advert which was displayed on the Canna Zine recently read; "Weed Growing Kit - Fantastic Low Prices Here - Feed Your Passion on ebay.co.uk, and yet another read the same, substituting the word "Weed" with "Pot" so there's absolutely no mistake.

It appears that the hypocrisy which surrounds cannabis and its users runs a lot deeper than simply stopping the sale of the Class C drug itself, but when it comes to getting people to spend money with online auctions, a cannabis growers money it would seem, is as good as anyone elses, and the advert's eBay pays for are targeted to appeal to the greater cannabis community.

All of the information from this press release has been forwarded to eBay and we are waiting for a reply. Any software which was downloaded has been deleted.

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