http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-1...wikileaks.html

MasterCard Inc., the world’s second- biggest payments network, said its website was slowed by a “flood” of traffic after the company suspended use of its brand by WikiLeaks.

The MasterCard website was taken down in a so-called denial-of-service attack orchestrated by Anonymous, an “Internet vigilante group,” and users of 4Chan, a network of uncensored message boards, TechCrunch reported today. In a post on Twitter that referred to WikiLeaks, Anonymous dubbed the move “Operation Payback.”

“The issue appears to be the result of a concentrated effort to flood our corporate website with traffic and slow access,” said James Issokson, a spokesman for the Purchase, New York-based company, in an e-mailed statement. MasterCard’s systems haven’t been compromised and “there is no impact on our cardholders’ ability to use their cards for secure transactions globally,” he said.

MasterCard and London-based Visa Europe Ltd. said yesterday that they are suspending use of their networks by WikiLeaks after the anti-secrecy group released thousands of clandestine U.S. military and State Department documents. The actions are the latest in a series by companies that may crimp access to funds for WikiLeaks, a nonprofit that relies on donations.

‘Political Pressure’

EBay Inc. unit PayPal recently cut off WikiLeaks for violating the online payment processor’s acceptable use policy. PostFinance, the banking arm of SwissPost, closed a bank account held by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying he doesn’t qualify to be a client. Amazon.com Inc. dropped WikiLeaks from its website-hosting service for breaching terms of service.

Visa Europe, the biggest payment-card network in the 27- member European Union, is bowing to “political pressure to close us down,” said Andreas Fink, chief executive officer of Reykjavik, Iceland-based DataCell ehf, a company that helps WikiLeaks accept donations online.

“The suspension of payments towards WikiLeaks is a violation of the agreements with their customers,” Fink said in a statement on the company’s website, in which he vowed legal action to keep contributions flowing. “Visa users have explicitly expressed their will to send their donations to WikiLeaks and Visa is not fulfilling this wish.”

Simon Kleine, a spokesman for Visa Europe, declined to comment beyond a company statement yesterday that said it had suspended payment acceptance on WikiLeaks’ website “pending further investigation into the nature of its business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules.”

Assange Arrested

Visa Europe split from Visa Inc., the world’s biggest payments network, before the San Francisco-based company’s initial public offering in March 2008.

Chris Monteiro, MasterCard’s chief spokesman, has said that the company didn’t receive a request from the U.S. government or any third party before cutting off WikiLeaks. “This decision was MasterCard’s alone,” he said yesterday.

Assange, 39, was arrested in the U.K. yesterday after Swedish police issued an international arrest warrant on rape allegations. Assange, who denies the charges, challenged the request to turn him over to Swedish authorities.

Since it began releasing the cables on Nov. 28, WikiLeaks also has faced denial-of-service attacks, where hackers attempt to overwhelm a website with repeated requests for data.

MasterCard climbed $2.14, or 0.9 percent, to $248.92 at 1:46 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares had dropped 3.6 percent on the year through yesterday.