Bloodygoodgames: Unfortunately, it's par for the course with many large American corporations these days -- that's why I avoid using most of them.
And....it's Google, who is willingly sending all your personal information to the NSA and the US government. Couldn't pay me to touch them with a 10 foot pole.
CrowTRobo: Wow. I've noticed this before but never commented as I think you are a great contributor when you aren't speaking about your obsessive hatred for all things American. You might want to see a therapist about it.
Its also hilarious when you use neteller because its UK-based. The UK government, as mentioned by another poster, does the exact same spying and is an active partner in US intelligence programs. Large UK corporations (and I would say, most large corporations) exhibit the same traits you describe as "American". Give it a rest.
Anyway, I've been using PayPal since it started as a small company before it became a big, bad, imperialist, consumer-hating American monopoly and never once had a problem. I don't keep money in my account which is just common sense - the internet is not a safe place to keep "digital" money just sitting there unused.
That doesn't prevent me from thinking their decision to hold 50% of crowd-source funding from the developer is ridiculous. Thankfully they reversed it.
I detest the US and pretty much everything it stands for, and I've never hidden that. Amazingly, much of the world does too. You should get out more.
And as for "seeing a therapist". What? Because I won't support anything about a country that illegally bombs other countries, illegally invades them, supports Israel above its own citizens, spies on the world and on and on. Honestly, if YOU don't think there's something wrong with that, it's you that needs to see a therapist.
And yes the UK is the same unfortunately although at least British members of parliament voted against illegally bombing Syria -- without that British vote, and America thus losing its "ally", the US would have bombed them by now.
But I'm British so, if I have a choice of one disgusting warmongering spying country over another and no other reasonable choice for the services I need, unfortunately, I'll choose the country I was born in and not the country I mistakenly spent many years in before I realized I detested everything about it.
If, however, a halfway decent country like Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands etc. started to create and promote their own internet-based businesses that are similar to what the American mega corporations are pushing, I'd be supporting them with so much money they wouldn't know what hit them.
As for why I hate the US, there was an excellent article published by The Guardian yesterday showing so many instances of why it's such an odious country - warmongering, its illegal bombings and invasions of other countries, the US refusal to stop stockpiling its own chemical weapons and landmines while telling other countries they must, the US refusing to sign international treaties that every other democracy on the planet signs etc etc are just the start for me.
Obama's Rogue State Tramples Over Every Law It Demands Others Uphold --
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/09/obama-rogue-state-tramples-every-law Funnily, the US has spent years trying to persuade people its tantamount to being the devil if you detest the US. Weirdly, hundreds of millions of us don't agree. Thank God.