Anyone else get a Non-Compliance from CCBill for leased feeds?
 

We were just notified by CCBill that we could not have bonus feeds detailed on tour that we don't own! Jen was just on the phone with one of the reps trying to explain that everyone has bonus feeds and they stated this was a new directive from the banks this month. And that they will be cracking down on everyone.

mike, im going to icq you in a second, i want to see what the issue is your particular case

UPDATE:
Well I just got off the phone with Mark from CCBill, and he explained what is happening. The issue is from VISA and applies to all new sites being approved. VISA is not allowing the display of sites on your tour that you do not control. Also he explained that issue does not affect just CCBill but all US Processors as they share a common review team for this compliance.

It seems that sites that have already been approved by VISA are not being re-reviewed (at this time). So you might not want to consider switching billing companies if you are already approved.

This definitely will have an impact on leased content providers.

Is this based on the WORDING on the tours or is this an entirely new directive? If it's the wording, that's not new. You cannot use the words bonus SITES, but bonus CONTENT is okay...I believe, but could stand to be corrected.

it willbe fine...you can still lease feeds from
www.memberchannels.com

just put it in your bonus section and you will be all good...

Why doesn't Visa just produce all the porn for us so we can quit reacting to their steady stream of regulations.

Porn has to be the most regulated form of "free speech" in the world.

I can get you white label feeds, hit me up for a demo

From what I understand the wording is not the issue, because I tried that first. Also it's not any one provider, it's ALL of them. At this point it only affects new sites being reviewed by VISA.

So you're saying that all IPSP's will no longer allow leased feeds since its content you don't control?
WG

Excellent questions! The reason that I hit this is because I wanted to use the same leased feeds that my competition uses in order to cancel any advantage they might have in that area. So those feeds are commonly used all over Amateur sites. It would be pretty obvious that they were not mine. I could (and did) remove the titles and any logo/images but that nullifies what I am trying to convey.

You can still have leased feeds IN your site, but you can't advertise them on your tour.

Ehm, I think you mean "in the U.S."

I'm pretty sure they're just saying you can't advertise that content on the tour in order to entice members to join the site.
I'm 99.9% sure you can still put all the bonus content in the members area that you want to.

Using the content is fine! It's just the issue of showing it on the tour. I plan to keep it for the retention, but it just pisses me off that VISA won't let me show it, but my existing competition can.

After speaking with Mark, I gather that nothing that the site isn't hosting themself (and thus have FULL control over) can be advertised on the tour.

Got it, thanks for the clarification.
WG

Thanks for the headsup on the thread btw Mike. Much appreciated. Kind of. :winkwink:

Not a problem Ron. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. BTW your feeds are excellent!

Just another day in the life of a feeds provider today. :winkwink: And thank you very much Mike.

I don't believe actual ownership is the issue, so much as CONTROL of the content ON your site. (That I can actually understand. I don't LIKE it, but begrudingly understand the reasoning.) Based solely on that, it's not hard to tell hosted content feeds (which you technically have no control of). If something you're clearly not hosting appears on your tour, I'd say you're sol on getting approved. How ccbill works in regards to assuring you DO have control of other sites on your tour, I have no idea.

Note-This is all information gathered from a 5 minute conversation with Mark. He would be the authority, not me. I'm just offering my opinion.

This isn't NEW. This has been the case for at least 2 years. You can give a member FREE access to a url that you own/control. But you can't advertise free or bonus access to sites that you don't own/control, such as feeds. You can still have them in the site...so it's not going to affect feed business. feeds are about adding value/retention.

Of course tours get modified all of the time ... especially after visa has approved the tour.

When I submitted a site to 365Billing, they made me change the wording from something along the lines of 'your will also get free access to these sites:' to 'you will also get access to all of these'... Then my site was approved..

I wonder if CCBill could pipe in and let us know if that would be acceptable?

Most likely from the list of urls that you reported when you signed up with your processor and/or when the new visa regs came in like 2 years ago .... I think we had to submit an updated list for visa and mastercard registration

This particular issue is new. Listing bonus sites or feeds on tours used to be the norm. As the person below you mentions, the wording then became the issue (THAT happened about 2 years ago). Now it doesn't matter. NO leased feeds can appear on tours...of sites that haven't been approved yet.

Many sites use feeds to attract new members as well as increase retention, so while we believe the effect will be minimal, there will still be SOME effect.

Alright. I stand corrected, it's been 4 months since I've submitted a site for approval and I don't think I had any feeds in the tour design.

If you list bonus sites that members also get access to, these sites must be in the same name (whois) as your other sites and they need to be approved by Visa together with your initial site. This has been like this for quite a while (at least with Epoch, they already had that rule for over a year). Not being allowed to list bonus FEEDS however is another (new) thing I think, but it might be they way you present it.
If a bonus (leased) feed is called Mega Sex Fuckers for example you can't make a screenshot and say something like "By joining you also get access to Mega Sex Fuckers". This is also not something new (at least Epoch already had this rule).