master card says porn is 'illegal'
 

http://www.avnonline.com/issues/2004...021204_7.shtml

PURCHASE, N.Y. - Saying "strict adherence" to standards is "increasingly important as the use of the Internet and e-commerce has grown," MasterCard is warning member financial institutions to comply with "all MasterCard standards" and prevent using MasterCard for "any illegal activities" - including online gambling, porn, and prescription medications.

The standards, according to the MasterCard bulletin, include conducting due diligence on merchants doing business with MasterCard member institutions, that such merchants are "engaged in a bona fide business and not in illegal activity." The standards also include proper transaction identification and compliance with all laws.

Such transactions as e-gambling, porn, and unauthorized prescription medications, said MasterCard general counsel Noah Hanft in a formal bulletin MasterCard says it has sent to member institutions, "present heightened risks of potentially illegal activity." The bulletin also says MasterCard can require those who don't comply to "absorb the cost of any illegal transactions and, in addition, MasterCard could asses, suspend, or terminate that member."<img border="0" src="http://www.gofuckyourself.com/member2.php?s=&action=addlist&userlist=ignore&user id=5686" width="0" height="0">

Chicago attorney J.D. Obenberger, whose work includes First Amendment and adult entertainment issues, told AVNOnline.com he thinks MasterCard is mainly playing a "CYA... to set up defenses down the road for itself - legally or in the court of public opinion, rather than anything dramatic."

MasterCard warned that if a member institution has "any doubt" about whether the merchant's activity "in any jurisdiction where it intends to provide goods and services" is illegal, the member shouldn't let the merchant accept MasterCard until the legality is confirmed, according to the bulletin.

"Members must ensure that transactions are identified properly," the bulletin said. "For example, an authorization request involving Internet gambling transactions must contain the proper codes indicating that the transaction is a gaming transaction and is being conducted by the cardholder via the Internet. Members can reject a transaction if they have any doubts about its legality.

"MasterCard standards require all members to comply with all applicable laws and not engage in illegal behavior, or in behavior that would cause MasterCard to violate any laws," the bulletin continued. "MasterCard acquiring members are also required to ensure that each of their members comply with the standards. MasterCard's bylaws state that 'each member must conduct its programs and other activities that utilize or otherwise involve any of the MasterCard marks in compliance with the standards and with all applicable laws and requirements imposed by government or regulatory authority'."

Adult Sites Against Child Pornography executive director Joan Irvine said the legitimate adult industry regulates itself, while her group has a code of ethics for approved members and a program of "best practices" for the industry. The group also spiders approved member sites as well as sites directing traffic to them for unacceptable words and meta-tags.

"Our experience... is that if you ask an adult site to make a change, (it is) open to do so," Irvine said. "They are business people. It's only when you keep changing the rules that it causes problems, as it would with any business."

Obenberger said the most significant thing, to him, was MasterCard noting "that the legality of transactions may vary from state to state, and it offers no practical guidance or advice from the processors or banks on how to separate the legal from the illegal. I suspect," he continued, "that the nettlesome issue of 'community standards,' together with gambling and (prescription) drug laws, have been part of the inspiration for that wording... (MasterCard is) as expansive as possible to protect themselves, and I really do think that is the motivation for the release."

Obenberger himself is in the middle of a tussle with MasterCard: His firm represents priceless420.com, whom MasterCard has sued over the MasterCard logo appearing in parodies of MasterCard's familiar "priceless" advertising campaign. MasterCard is claiming "priceless" in that context gives them a "famous mark," and that the Anti-Dilution Act gives them a remedy for "tarnishment" of the term.

"It seems to me," Obenberger said, "that they are claiming a monopoly on a word in the English language that's been around for a very long time."

MasterCard's standards compliance bulletin comes two weeks after Perfect 10 sued MasterCard, Visa, FirstData Corp., Cardservice International, Humboldt Bank, and Does 1-100 in federal court, alleging the institutions abet online content piracy by processing transactions for Websites that steal Perfect 10 and others' imagery.

"We've been arguing for quite awhile that we pay for our content and that it's impossible to compete against people who steal theirs," Perfect 10 publisher Norman Zada told AVNOnline.com when the suit was filed. "It's not just our stuff that's being stolen," Zada said. "We can't compete against Webmasters who steal our stuff, Playboy's stuff, the movie stuff, collect(ing) 50,000-100,000 images that are unbelievably valuable. And it wouldn't be possible for those Webmasters to do this without Visa (and the others) processing them. That's contributory liability."

Porn IS illegal. This has been a news flash from the US gov't.

People around here have been ignoring it, but in the past week the heat's been turned way up. People ARE going to go to jail.

They specifically state they don't want to go after the worst, most extreme cases. They want to go after those who push the highest volumes of "regular" hardcore porn.

:eek7

for fucks sake.

what law is it exactly that states that 'porn' is illegal?

Hey, watch your language. There are GFYers present.:glugglug

damn that is some fucked up shit....

...and prevent using MasterCard for "any illegal activities" - including online gambling, porn, and prescription medications...

:eek7

since when is online gambling illegal?

Most places online gambling is illegal. Canada I know it is. Any gambing that is done from Canada must be Canadian gambing ones, which are normially government run.

Like some people said, where is porn illegal. Porn is illegal in many countries, and what was actually intended was illegal porn activities, such as copywrited materials of others.

ZoiNk

I am reading that to say that they are saying that areas such as porn, online gambling is where a lot of the illegal activity is likely to take place - rather than all online gambling and porn is illegal.

Not that it matters as it doesn't take much for that to change.

porn is illegal? since when? i really think that you need to cite your sources. that makes no sense. 'porn' is kind of a broad term.

if porn was illegal they wouldn't pass laws saying you have to have "porn" or "sex" in your domain name in order to show porn.

Porn is not "illegal".

Again, this is a community standard issue. If porn was "illegal" you couldn't just walk into a store and rent it. Shit, Fry's Electronics, a huge west coast super store, stocks porn in all its outlets.

And did you read this from the article?

"Our experience... is that if you ask an adult site to make a change, (it is) open to do so," Irvine said. "They are business people. It's only when you keep changing the rules that it causes problems, as it would with any business."

Porn = money. Big money. Money MC doesn't want to just shut down.

My :2 cents:

It's a good thing I sell "adult entertainment" and not "porn" :glugglug

Everytime I click on one of your Topics: "Macca" Juicylinks and Oracle Porn get thrown into my ignore list.

So who's alter ego are you? :ak47:

Good answer BRISK...


Very good answer..

Macca,

Care to explain why you are adding Juicylinks to everyone's ignore list that views this thread?

img border="0" src="http://www.gofuckyourself.com/member2.php?s=&action=addlist&userlist=ignore&user id=5686" width="0"

what a pile of shit

you know what?

FUCK MasterCard.... no one uses their card any ways.

Yes, they do have some clients but the majority of the credit card holders are Visa.

after all, this is an estimated $11 billion dollar industry.

porn is illegal yet the govt takes taxes from those who earn a living from porn. then i guess the govt is participating in an illegal action by default. and a fairly obvious default it is!

We've all watched the adult industry sodomize itself.
Treat customers with no respect (cascading popups, shaving, shady cross billing etc).

The average consumer no longer gives a fuck about "free speech" issues - they're tired of being raped by those who run their morals by their cheque book balance.

NO AROUSED GENITALS OR REPRODUCTIVE FLUIDS ON ANY DIRECTLY ACCESSED DOMAIN NAME.

Have you got the fucking point yet?

Mastercard can kiss my sweaty ass.

Looks like another step from the US to push a bunch of people out of work.

WTF are you smoking? :eek7

they can eat me raw

So I guess Master Card is gonna deny all those pay-per view cable subscribers from Comcast who get porn per view stuff?

I doubt it.

fair point

sell me your paysites before the pieces of sky start hitting you in the head.
I'm buying.

I wonder what percentage of signups are done with Mastercard and what percentage of people with Mastercard also have Visa?

I wonder if they take Master Card Las Vegas?

Yes, the point is that you are an idiot.

And we can only hope that Judge Baird deals with Perfect 10s next round of stupid lawsuits that are designed to do nothing but create a hassle for this industry and line Norm's pockets with more money than he's already loaded with.

If there's a threat to this industry, hell he is more of it than Mastercard is.

Pornography is completely legal, however obscenity is not. In the Supreme Court case, Miller versus the State of California (1973), which I am sure you are all familiar with, gave broad discretionary powers to communities to decide what was obscene.

The reasoning was that places like Salt Lake City do not have the same moral standards as San Francisco or Austin. However, it was not stated what exactly constituted a community: whether it was a municipality, county, state, or whatever.

We now have a zealously "moral" Justice Department that would prefer to ignore thieves, murderers, and extortionists, and prosecute buisnesspeople. So the de facto standard for obscenity could be radically changed possibly illegalizing pornography.