eBay's (Nasdaq:EBAY) Caves on WikiLeaks, Freezes Account

Although not admitting it was political pressure which resulted in the freezing of the PayPal account of WikiLeaks by eBay (Nasdaq:EBAY), there can be no doubt that is in fact the case.

Cited as the reason for taking the actions was because WikiLeaks was used to "encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity." This allegedly broke the terms of service of the account with Paypal.

It had nothing to do with the incompetence of the Obama administration or bringing to light of some of the hidden deeds the government took part in with other governments, and with entities in the U.S. as well.

This could slow down WikiLeaks significantly because it was the major revenue source for the website, as PayPal allows clients to place a donation button on a site and for donors to pay with little more than a click of the computer mouse.

Attempts to shut down the site have been futile so far as mirror sites crop up as soon as the shut down in one country. Most of the information is already out their and downloaded to storage devices anyway, so there's nothing that can be done to stop the information from being reviewed and commented on.

There has been strong support and opposition on both sides of the issue concerning the release of the information. There are those hailing the transparency finally brought to government actions, and those opposing it, saying it could harm many people identified as providing information that could result in retribution, among other issues.