In my research about the New York Times IT Strategy I have been looking at all kinds of online news sources and how the Times can begin to employ their best practices to continue to grow into an interactive and user-focused platform. Some of this research has touched on WikiLeaks, and how interesting it is that user-generated content has been able to have such an immense impact on the community and international news. Now it seems that WikiLeaks is really starting to feel the heat from multiple directions, including a revenue partner.
WikiLeaks asks for user donations for funding, and PayPal was a WikiLeaks partner, assuring users that their payments were safe and secure (and anonymous), but PayPal has decided to discontinue their services siting their acceptable use policy and how WikiLeaks wasn't in compliance.
With all of the issues WikiLeaks is having, I'm wondering what kind of impact losing PayPal will have on their ability to stay operational. Though PayPal isn't a revenue stream, it provides a secure way for supporters to donate, and without that I'm not sure WikiLeaks backers will want to make donations and expose their information, or their identity, to anyone - especially with the questionable current issues with the founder.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/04/wikileaks.pay.pal/index.html?hpt=T2
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