LONDON — Visa said Friday that it has closed a donation channel to WikiLeaks after a payment processor briefly accepted money transfers to the anti-secrecy site.
Visa and MasterCard were two of several financial and Internet service companies that severed ties to WikiLeaks following its disclosure of thousands of confidential U.S. documents. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims the 7-month-long blockade has cost his online group millions.
But Thursday both companies appeared to abruptly change course when WikiLeaks’ payment processor, DataCell ehf, announced that donations to the site were again being processed.
That appears to have been an accident, at least as far as Visa Europe Ltd. was concerned, and the company quickly stopped the payments. The Associated Press
