VANCOUVER, March 24 /CNW/ - After four years of processing subscription

payments for Going Natural magazine, PayPal has abruptly cancelled service to

its publisher, the Federation of Canadian Naturists (FCN). Attempts to get an

explanation as to how the magazine violates PayPal's "acceptable use" policy

have been met with generic e-mails from faceless and implacable

customer-service personnel.

     Those e-mails falsely claim the magazine is pornographic, and sells

"sexually oriented goods or services involving minors" or "services for which

the purpose is to facilitate meetings for sexually oriented activities."

     Going Natural magazine is devoted to naturism (or nudism), a social

movement over a hundred years old and unrelated to sexual activity. The

practices the magazine has portrayed for over 20 years have been shown to

benefit people of all ages, especially naturist children. In several

scientific polls, millions of people in Canada and the USA report engaging in

naturist activities such as skinny-dipping.

     The FCN is not the first naturist organization to be rejected by PayPal,

which arbitrarily denies service to persons or organizations it alone deems

socially unacceptable.

     "PayPal's decision about Going Natural and its claims about the FCN are

unfounded embellishments born of ignorance," notes Judy Williams, Government

Affairs Director for the FCN.

     PayPal has become synonymous, world-wide, with the convenience of online

payments. As stated on its website, "PayPal has quickly become a global leader

in online payment solutions with more than 153 million accounts worldwide."

     "Organizations such as PayPal with near monopolies in their industries

are duty-bound to be objective and fair," says Ms. Williams. "PayPal also has

a responsibility to avoid making arbitrary and narrow judgements, as well as

issuing wildly untrue and offensive statements about clients."

     The FCN Board of Directors is considering a class action lawsuit. It

wouldn't be the first against PayPal, which paid out over $9 million in 2004

to settle such a suit. Any organization which believes it has been refused

service by PayPal because of political, social, or religious views should

contact the FCN.

     Finally, Ms. Williams points to PayPal's hypocrisy for accusing the FCN

of sexually immoral and even illegal activities, when PayPal itself supports

transactions for "certain sexually oriented physical goods," as detailed on

its website.