PRQ

On Monday Torrent Freak reported that, after three years of service to the organization, PayPal has frozen the funds of PRQ, an ISP founded by The Pirate Bay's Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm. Earlier this month, sources also reported the suspension of the Twitter account of Anonymous Sweden (@AnonOpsSweden). Anonymous, which supports WikiLeaks, is allegedly responsible for numerous high-profile computer hacks.

Since the Stockholm-based web host PeRiQuito AB, or PRQ, was created in 2004, it has had a public policy that it will host and defend any website that is legal in Sweden. Boasting "no-questions-asked" customer service, PRQ even accepts cash payments to ensure the anonymity of website operators. "Generally we don't know who our customers are," says PRQ's owner Mikael Viborg. "By Swedish law, we're not required to." Viborg adds: "We don't cooperate with the authorities unless we absolutely have to." This approach has garnered the ISP the business of many controversial websites, including WikiLeaks. It has also attracted the attention of authorities. PRQ has been repeatedly raided by Swedish law enforcement -- most recently this October, when authorities confiscated four of the company's servers and took down dozens of sites. In 2006 police took 180 servers in an investigation of The Pirate Bay (reportedly, The Pirate Bay is no longer hosted by PRQ).