In an indication of the mindset and lack of attention to details all indian paypal account now have the opportunity to get themselves declared as freelancers and get a better exchange rate, lower charges when they receive payment. On 25 February 2016, paypal account holders received an email from Paypal saying that they could a better exchange rate as they one person firms and they were receiving money from freelance websites. Someone from Paypal had taken the effort to compile a list of the top 120 websites for payment for Indians and all indian paypal account holders were given access to the websites.
However a major domain investor who has been defamed as a freelancer for years by greedy fraud incompetent officials falsely claiming to own her websites without spending any money, took the effort to do some research on the websites which pay Indians. While some are largely freelance websites like Elance, Upwork, Freelancer.com, Fiverr, 99designs, envato, there are a large number of websites which cannot be considered to be freelance websites in any way. For example airbnb is a room rental, bed and breakfast website, where foreigners book a room in India and pay through Paypal because it is extremely convenient and cost effective.
Similarly there are number of ad networks mentioned like Infolinks, Bidvertiser, Adcash and the publishers receiving payment are not freelancers, they are publishers who are taking the risk of creating content, websites, without knowing whether they will make any money from these websites. Treating the publisher as a freelancer is both financially and professionally incorrect. The online publisher with a blog or website is more like a book publisher who is taking the risk of publishing a book, without knowing whether he or she will make money from the website or blog.
Another big surprise in the list of top 120 paypal websites was the fact that no major text link ad network was mentioned. It clearly indicated the complete control that google has on the minds of indian webmasters, they are too risk averse or in awe of google, to make some money from text link advertising and earn the wrath of google. It would be interesting to find out if google has intentionally ensured that no text link ad network was mentioned in the list of top 120 paypal “freelancer”websites so that no other indian paypal account holder starts selling text link ads flouting google’s infamous webmaster guidelines
It would be interesting to know why both Paypal and indian officials are not willing to acknowledge the fact that some of the paypal account holders are domain investors, online publishers, owners of property. Is it because the indian security and intelligence agencies have already forced most of the domain investors and online publishers to sell their websites, domains cheaply to themselves or their associates, forming private limited companies in the process. The tax treatment for a service provider and an investor remain radically different in most countries and it is time Paypal and indian officials distinguish betwen the two.