user22805: Once my public wallet address is known, is there anyway to deny payments to that wallet?
For example, if I want an external authority to regulate who can pay into a wallet, is that possible?  
I guess a related question is can I turn a wallet 'off' once it is in the block chain and known.

user-1: No, you cannot do that. The wallet doesn't really hold the coins, it is a structure that contains some private keys which in turn can digitally prove that you are the owner of their public hash, also known as a bitcoin address. As long as a bitcoin address is valid, anyone can send any sort of payments to it and none can prevent this from happening. 

user21052: No, you can't prevent people from paying any particular address even if you control that address.  This is a known problem: it would be very nice to have an address that can only be paid once.
Something like P2SH^2 could help with this, although it would not provide a perfect one-time-only property.

user21451: No.  At present this is not possible.  Any one can create a transaction to transfer currency to any valid address.  The transaction will be accepted by the network as long as it is valid.
It could be achieved by a collusion of the majority of the hashing power in the network, if the colluders allow/deny transactions that meet criteria of their choosing, which can include transfers to specific addresses.

22805: <p>Once my public wallet address is known, is there anyway to deny payments to that wallet?</p>

<p>For example, if I want an external authority to regulate who can pay into a wallet, is that possible?  </p>

<p>I guess a related question is can I turn a wallet 'off' once it is in the block chain and known.</p>
 -1: <p>No, you cannot do that. The wallet doesn't really hold the coins, it is a structure that contains some private keys which in turn can digitally prove that you are the owner of their public hash, also known as a bitcoin address. As long as a bitcoin address is valid, anyone can send any sort of payments to it and none can prevent this from happening. </p>
 21052: <p>No, you can't prevent people from paying any particular address even if you control that address.  This is a known problem: it would be very nice to have an address that can only be paid once.</p>

<p>Something like <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.bitcoin.devel/1996">P2SH^2</a> could help with this, although it would not provide a perfect one-time-only property.</p>
 21451: <p>No.  At present this is not possible.  Any one can create a transaction to transfer currency to any valid address.  The transaction will be accepted by the network as long as it is valid.</p>

<p>It could be achieved by a collusion of the majority of the hashing power in the network, if the colluders allow/deny transactions that meet criteria of their choosing, which can include transfers to specific addresses.</p>
