Anonymous has resumed its fight with PayPal, but this time with a twist: instead of engaging in more denial-of-service attacks against the online payment processor, the group is exhorting its supporters to close their PayPal accounts and cease using the service. This new OpPayPal comes in the wake of arrests the FBI announced last week that were made in response to the large denial of service attacks made against PayPal after PayPal stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.

The statement issued by Anonymous denounces PayPal for acquiescing to government pressure and blocking payments to WikiLeaks. The statement also expresses the group's outrage that the FBI has arrested suspected criminals, who face the possibility of 15 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000. As punishment for this Anonymous-unapproved action, the statement encourages everyone to use alternative services to PayPal, close their PayPal accounts, and post pictures of the closures to Twitter. Those who can't close their accounts for any reason are invited to complain to the company instead.

Reports on Twitter of account closures in response to Anonymous' boycott number in their hundreds, and Anonymous itself is claiming that some 35,000 accounts have been closed. eBay, owner of PayPal, saw its share price drop by around 2 percent when the markets opened this morning, and Anonymous is taking credit for this decline. However, given that the NASDAQ as a whole has dropped by about 1.8 points at the time of writing, this fall in price looks more likely to be a reflection of prevailing market trends, rather than any specific response to the PayPal boycott.

Meanwhile, the arrests have continued. The Metropolitan Police in the UK are claiming to have arrested Topiary, a key player in both AnonOps and Lulz Security. The report says that a 19-year-old male was arrested in the Shetland Islands as part of continuing investigation into the denial-of-service and hacking attacks made under both the Lulz Security and Anonymous banners. Other addresses in the north of England are being searched, and a 17-year-old male is also being interviewed in connection with the inquiry.