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Web sites relying on the ubiquitous PayPal donation or paid subscription links may get a rude awakening in just a few days if MasterCard goes ahead with its announced intention to forbid third-party credit processing. USA Today has the story, first reported last week.

PayPal is negotiating with MasterCard for an exemption from the new rules, and huge numbers of small online businesses are anxiously waiting to see how things turn out. or should be. According to USA Today,

"The biggest third-party system is PayPal. It has about 13 million registered users, most of whom are small Web merchants or people who frequent auction sites.

The change would require those merchants to set up deals with banks so they could take MasterCard directly. That's a time-consuming and costly process, especially for small merchants."

Other credit card companies such as Visa and American Express have not indicated whether they would follow MasterCard's lead, but so far there is no sign of any such move.

Comments: We hope this doesn't happen, but the trend toward decreasing Internet democracy (filtering, restricted access, charging for information, etc.) doesn't leave us feeling hopeful. How would this affect Mac sites? Take a few minutes to count the PayPal links and draw your own conclusions. Online auctions may be affected, too. 13 million users are a lot of people to be cut off from paying or being paid with MasterCard, so this isn't small change.

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