Indonesia restores access to PayPal, Yahoo and Valve services

Indonesia has unblocked PayPal, Steam owner Valve and Yahoo (Engadget's parent company), allowing them to resume operations. The country prevented residents from accessing services of several companies that missed a July 29th deadline to register with a government database. The Communications Ministry reopened access to PayPal, Yahoo and Valve services after they signed up.

“PayPal is fully committed to complying with applicable laws and regulations in the markets where we do business," a PayPal spokesperson told Engadget. "We have registered as an Electronic Systems Operator in Indonesia, having connected directly with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics. PayPal customers can send, receive, and access their money as usual. We regret any disruption our customers may have experienced last weekend.”

Controversial licensing rules that Indonesia established in 2020 allow authorities to force registered platforms to turn over data from certain users. There's a content moderation aspect as well. Platforms are required to remove content that "disturbs public order" or is considered unlawful. If the content takedown demand is urgent, they have just four hours to comply. Otherwise, they have 24 hours to yank the offending content.

Even though the rules were brought in two years ago, some notable companies are said to have scrambled to register on time and keep their services available. According to Reuters, Meta, Amazon and Google signed up just days before the deadline. However, it seems Epic Games Store and EA's Origin service remain blocked.