PayPal Vice President of Platform, Mobile and New Ventures Osama Bedier elaborated on the company's actions when pressed on stage at the LeWeb conference in Paris. He started by explaining the process the company takes for these decisions. "We have an acceptable use policy group," Bedier explained, "to make sure that our customers are protected." PayPal evaluates different situations and complaints to figure out whether someone is violating its acceptable use policy.
The acceptable use policy group had to address Julian Assange and WikiLeaks when the U.S. State Department issued a letter on November 27 stating that the activity of the WikiLeaks organization was deemed illegal in the U.S. "It was straightforward," Bedier said, once the State Department made that declaration.