14 DAY TRIAL // Online payment method CashU has decided to ban VPN services, something that has also been done by other similar services in recent months.
The company is motivating the decision by saying that the move is supposed to protect the service from potential abuse, which is more pronounced when anonymity tools are involved.
CashU is a rather popular payment service that operates in the Middle East and North Africa, where it has become one of the top alternatives to credit cards.
According to TorrentFreak, while no official announcement was made available, TorGuard, a VPN provider, was informed that the policy had changed after their application was turned down.
“Please note that since VPN Services can support anonymity when being misused, CASHU, as a financial institution, is prohibited from supporting such services as is it going through a transitional stage. Therefore, kindly note that we cannot accept your merchant account registration,” the message read.
This indicates that the company may very well have been forced to change its policy by some third party. TorGuard suspects that it may have something to do with the censorship efforts in the region.
“Privacy online is a basic human right and fundamental building block of any free, democratic society. Unfortunately, CashU’s Middle Eastern underwriting banks are not located in such a place. Censorship laws enforced by the United Arab Emirate’s Telecom Regulatory Authority borderline on draconian as they decide what content is or is not acceptable,” said Ben Van Pelt, the company’s CEO.
He added that the new anti-VPN attitude adopted by CashU “is part of a larger issue of increased government censorship and regulation in the region.”
The company still seems to accept payments for VPN providers who have already signed up for the service, but it is unclear whether this will be long-lasting or if it will be stopped soon too.
CashU isn’t the first and it likely won’t be the last to block such payments to VPN services who have been having troubles for years. PayPal has caused some trouble in the past, but it hasn’t outright blocked such services, but Paysafecard has taken this step.
TorGuard has also had troubles with Alipay, the Chinese payment solution that is quite popular in Asia. An official statement has not been issued by CashU, and TorGuard is waiting for an official reply about the situation the company is facing at the moment.