I'm going to try to articulate a position that I think that I understand but is not mine, so please bear with me.

Let's put aside what is "legal" and focus on what is "socially desirable" business behavior from the perspective of Anon. MasterCard, as a private entity, has wide leeway in how it chooses to deal with other private entities such as Wikileaks. Is this socially desirable? While I have no special insight into what Anon is thinking, I would surmise that they are not pleased that private entities are restricting free-flow of information and acting as a state's agents even when not compelled to do so by the force of law.

We've heard from many business (Amazon, PayPal, etc) that blocking WikiLeaks (and consequently inhibiting free distribution of classified US documents and secret corporate information) is, at its core, a profitable business decision. I would guess that Anon is trying to send a message that such an "anti-freedom" decision (scare quotes intentional) can instead become very expensive.

This sounds like stellar news for Heroku employees and investors.

I'm not sure how it's going to be good for Heroku customers (like me) in the long-term. There will be the inevitable brain drain over the course of 1-2years when key staff move away as their contract clauses run out and then we'll be left with Heroku being run by SalesForce :(

I think you make the mistake of thinking that all protest activity should be about making friends or increasing your reputation and good standing.

Often it's just as much about hitting back as hard as you can. Now you can argue the merits of that, but we have crossed a major threshold here: The internet has taken down the websites of two of the largest credit providers in the world, two weeks before Christmas.

If that isn't an exertion of grassroots power in the internet age, I don't know what is. The implications are boundless. Visa, and Mastercard probably didn't think twice about canceling Wikileak's payments. I doubt their risk assessment would have been the same if they had known this would result.

Another one I learned that pops up in this tale: get on the plane if the meeting is important.

>Have they restored the account yet?

Are you kidding me? That Machiavellian sanity-grinder gave Notch, a legitimate indie developer selling a game about digging through dirt, Hell on Earth just to get his money.

PayPal doing the right thing, snorts I'll sprout wings and shave my eyebrows off first.

I'd sooner trust the IRS to do right by me than PayPal.

Disclosure: My first entrepreneurial effort was annihilated in concert by UPS, PayPal, and eBay.

>Congratulations to the Heroku team though. Is it DropBox's turn next?

Shut up before you jinx us all.

Making Rosa Parks get out of her seat was lame but not technically illegal. Her refusal was completely illegal and plenty of folks argued it was damaging.

I don't see why civil disobedience should cease to be civil disobedience just because it's on a computer.

  You allow me to put a screenshot of the design
  on this page; ($5 extra if you don't) 

You could reword that clause so your clients feel they're getting something valuable for their $5.

  Please note that I post all designs to my public
  portfolio and this website.  If you need the design
  to stay secret, it only costs $5 more

Or you could invert your pricing. So you start off as "designfor20bucks" and offer a $5 discount if you can add the image to your public portfolio and post it on the site. People generally feel better about getting a deal than getting hit with extra costs unexpectedly.