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Whatever you might think of the various professions... As long as it is legal, it seems the major payment service providers should not pass on their moral code

Whatever you might think of the various professions... As long as it is legal, it seems the major payment service providers should not pass on their moral code onto everybody else. What's next? You get no water/power/whatever if you run a business that the service providers simply do not agree with?

zamadatix 7y ago
Water/power are utilities and are regulated differently than other industries. But your general question is an open debate. If you run a hosting company do you have to host things you disagree with? If you run a transaction company doy you have to exchange with parties you disagree with? What if a certain type of transaction is too high risk, do they have to do it anyways? Personally I'd like to see things lean more towards being agnostic to avoid amplification of the popular opinion but it isn't a cut and dry topic without corner cases or hard to define regulations.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  If you run a shop, you can't decline service to democrats, even if disagree with them. You can't discriminate, that's the law. I don't see how is it radically different from running a hosting company.
  - HaloZero 7y ago
    In the United States I think you can actually. Nothing stops you. You can't discriminate based on a few criteria like race, age, gender (and depending on the state) sexual orientation.
    - paxswill 7y ago
      Even this depends. In DC political affiliation is a protected class. https://ohr.dc.gov/protectedtraits https://ohr.dc.gov/protectedtraits
      - hedora 7y ago
        “Political affiliation: belonging to or supporting a political party” Presumably landlords in DC can still kick people out for wearing an Obama / Trump shirt. (That’s supporting a candidate, not a party.) I’d be curious to see court precedents on this.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    Political affiliation is not a protected class in the US. You're likely to face enough societal backlash this isn't a common issue though. The problem with the societal sort of regulation is it's about whatever is popular not about discrimination.
    - erichocean 7y ago
      > Political affiliation is not a protected class in the US. It is in California (which, obviously, is located in the US).
  - x220 7y ago
    You legally can, but you shouldn't.
  - briandear 7y ago
    You actually can.
  - wefarrell 7y ago
    Sure you can: https://www.newsweek.com/man-maga-hat-kicked-out-nyc-bar-it-legal-ask-trump-supporters-leave-1359741 https://www.newsweek.com/man-maga-hat-kicked-out-nyc-bar-it-...
- int_19h 7y ago
  The answer to those questions depends on what your market dominance is. If you're one of many players in the market, and you're all actively competing against each other, then discriminate all you want - somebody else will cover that niche. But if you're the only option for many people, or there are so few options that the market is not really competitive, then yeah, I think it's perfectly legitimate to force companies to not discriminate.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    It's relatively hard to make reliable regulation on "active competition" especially since you're talking about it only being valid with large numbers of players. How is a hosting company with 20 locations supposed to know that today a startup hosting company has closed in Wichita and it can't discriminate anymore since the other competitor in that area upped their per month cost? What defines if competitor #4 farther out qualifies as competition easily enough? Say you did get the regulation down perfectly though and it was dead simple to follow, why should a black rights activist have to do more work to find out which hosting company wouldn't discriminate while others can just click any and go? The popular debate extends to more than whether or not you think a certain position is enforceable as there is also disagreement about what reasonably solving the problem looks like. Some others would argue focusing on what the vast majority opinions are and ignoring the rest provides more value. Others argue it just provides the illusion that everything was solved instead of letting it be brought to mind.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      Surely it should work by availability areas? Web hosting is generally a global market. ISPs can have coverage vary inside a city block. As such, it's very nearly impossible for a customer to run out of web hosting options, but they may only have literally one option for internet providers.
      - zamadatix 7y ago
        And who decides what defines every availability area and competition map for every product and service every day to see if there is enough coverage/competition? Or are you arguing for a whitelist-to-discriminate model for things with extremely large coverage areas (perhaps worldwide)? If the latter do you think there are enough of these that can be done easily enough to save complexity/cost overall or is it only applicable to a narrow field e.g. web services and other things still need an answer anyways?
- tw04 7y ago
  I always look at it as: can I function in society without X. With that in mind, the general consumer can function just fine in society without hosting. Three* things off the top of my head that SHOULD be regulated as a utility but currently aren't: ISP/Broadband access Payment processing Cellphone/telecom It's exceedingly difficult to function in 2019 on a strictly cash basis. Just like it's almost impossible to function in society without broadband. On the other hand, I can get by just fine if "hosting" doesn't agree with some questionable content I want to post online. It's more likely to get me a job than prevent me from getting one....
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    This is pretty much how the US has been going about it. It's been a bit laggard as you have noted though. Some say this is good enough and we should work on updating things, others say the societal cost to just do this everywhere can be lower than the societal cost of being slow to update.
- devit 7y ago
  I think the test should be whether another company could offer a service giving the same result. So for instance this would be fine: - A web hosting company refusing clients, because you can use another one - Amazon refusing to sell the item themselves, because other companies can sell on the Amazon marketplace - A bank refusing a client, since you can just use another bank This would not be fine: - Apple refusing to list an app on the app store, since no else can do so - Amazon refusing to allow an item on its marketplace at all, since there is no other way to sell to people who buy on Amazon - Google banning something from their search engine, since that's the only way to reach people who search with only Google - PayPal refusing a client, since using PayPal is the only way to easily accept payment from PayPal account holders
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    What if the service is more expensive? What if it has poor service quality? What if it makes it hard to find because your're unpopular? Can you easily define answers to these everyone can follow for more than just a single business example of hosting? If you can does everyone agree it's fair enough? This is the debate, not whether you think hosting can have an enforceable set of rules.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Which is pretty much where anticompetitive laws are in the U.S. in terms of hurting the consumer. The fringe cases I would worry about are for tiny niche markets where there is only one supplier, or regulatory monopolies (e.g. healthcare networks).
  - baroffoos 7y ago
    So the general rule is that if the companies holds some kind of user lock in they now must accept all legal users. Since a hosting company has no such lock in and moving to another one lets you reach exactly the same audience then they are safe.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    That's a good one. Expanding on the banking one. It would be one thing if Wells Fargo wouldn't do business with you. Is another that they flag your ChexSystems Report so you can't open an account anywhere else.
- erichocean 7y ago
  The answer to all of your questions is..."Are you a platform?" [0] If so, you must accept, by law, all customers/participants/users without prejudice or discrimination, and you may only deny or limit service to same after a written order from a court of law instructing you to do so. Furthermore, this rule supersedes any Terms of Service that a company may wish to enforce. That's not what we have in the US today—but we should. My money is on the EU crafting legislation to that effect first. I'd normally expect California to implement this kind of legislation first, but given the amount of money donated by the big tech companies, I doubt it'll happen. [0] A "platform" is any business with a userbase that exceeds 1% of the population (for non-commercial customers, e.g. YouTube/Twitter/Facebook), or in the case of a business-oriented marketplace (such as Amazon's Seller Central), 10% of the specific market the business is targeting with their platform.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Eh, I would be wary of that definition, even though I am totally in support of platforms not being allowed to get rid of content that isn't illegal. There should be way more nuance than what your definition provides. For example, if I host a very popular forum for discussing cars that somehow manages to exceed 1% of the population of the country it is offered in, I feel like I would be totally justified to remove posts that have nothing to do with cars and talk about completely off-topic stuff like videogames or politics.
    - erichocean 7y ago
      The 1% rule is for the US. If you want a higher % for your own country, knock yourself out. It's the principle of the thing that matters anyway, not the exact % that defines a platform. That said, I see no issue with asking a privately run forum to keep it's membership under 3.4M if they don't want to be regulated like a platform.
httpsterio 7y ago
I think PayPal might've publicly said that this is solely because porn poses a greater risks and SFW businesses just due to the amount of actually fraudulent payments and account hacking performed to pay for porn. Also, there's the less obvious issue with charge backs and people lying about getting hacked and having to deal with all that.
- teh_infallible 7y ago
  Another reason bitcoin could fill this niche
- ianhawes 7y ago
  My experience in both digital payments and the adult space is that this line of reasoning (high risk + fraud) is outdated. The myth that adult payments are higher risk is perpetuated by those certain PSPs (CCBill, et al) that process adult payments for 15-20%, require 4% reserves, and have very high setup fees. I would love to see an adult version of Stripe to help innovate payments in the adult industry. Paging @pc???
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    I’d be curious to see that backed up. Having worked in the industry at one time, all I can say is there is a good reason merchant accounts are super expensive for porn sites. All the players in the game are pretty sketch.
xtracto 7y ago
The problem for those providers is often not their own morals per se. But the fear of being related to certain verticals. This oftentimes has a real impact on lost deals from other companies that do have a moral judgment and wont do business with you if you are related say to marijuana selling companies.
- Corrado 7y ago
  In that case, wouldn't this be a great opportunity to start a payment processor that (mainly) deals with these "fringe" verticals? What's stopping someone from creating MoralPay (or whatever) that accepts all money from adult entertainment, dispensaries, etc. From what I understand there is a huge market for processing legal monies from these types of businesses, especially dispensaries. Is it too difficult in 2019 to start a payment processor? Is there some legal requirement that is preventing it? Some people said that creating a new car company in today's market would be impossible (too many regulations, expense, etc.) but Tesla seems to be doing pretty well. Is there a "Tesla" for the payment processing industry?
  - Corrado 7y ago
    I think this might answer my question: https://marker.medium.com/the-companies-venture-capital-isnt-allowed-to-invest-in-a59c4cdd5ae https://marker.medium.com/the-companies-venture-capital-isnt... Would "Vice Ventures" fund a "vice" payment processor? It seems like it would be right up their alley.
  - swebs 7y ago
    I believe that was the idea behind Hatereon
ElCapitanMarkla 7y ago
I totally agree with you but I wonder if it’s a moral thing (like those assholes have any) or if it’s a fraud thing. I’ve worked in the online dating space and we always had trouble with payment providers due to a really high rate of fraudulent transactions.
draw_down 7y ago
It’s not obvious, but morality and fraud are linked. People buying something considered immoral, when confronted by a spouse or other loved one, lie and say the charge is fraudulent. In this way “immoral” businesses rack up lots of chargebacks, which pisses off financial institutions. Payment providers need to remain on good terms with those institutions. So dealing with these businesses can create more risk than is worth it. Nobody who runs a payment processor is wagging their finger at camgirls or dispensaries or whatever. They could not care less. I’m not saying it’s fair or good, I’m saying it’s about risk and financial institutions not morality.
JackFr 7y ago
Talk to tobacco about being deplatformed. Tobacco companies have banking, but fewer places sell cigarettes or allow smoking. It’s not discrimination —- neither cam girls or tobacco farmers are a protected class. Payment processing isn’t a right.
- solveit 7y ago
  The point is that payment processing very well should be a right in this age.
  - JackFr 7y ago
    So you want to compel me, against my will, to do business with you, with the full force of government. I would take a more libertarian view and say I don’t want to work with tobacco/guns/cannabis/pornography and I think it’s a bad idea for the government to make me.
    - solveit 7y ago
      I quite agree. I however maintain that everybody should have access to payment processing services regardless. I think this circle can in fact be squared.

zamadatix 7y ago

Water/power are utilities and are regulated differently than other industries. But your general question is an open debate. If you run a hosting company do you have to host things you disagree with? If you run a transaction company doy you have to exchange with parties you disagree with? What if a certain type of transaction is too high risk, do they have to do it anyways? Personally I'd like to see things lean more towards being agnostic to avoid amplification of the popular opinion but it isn't a cut and dry topic without corner cases or hard to define regulations.

vbezhenar 7y ago
If you run a shop, you can't decline service to democrats, even if disagree with them. You can't discriminate, that's the law. I don't see how is it radically different from running a hosting company.
- HaloZero 7y ago
  In the United States I think you can actually. Nothing stops you. You can't discriminate based on a few criteria like race, age, gender (and depending on the state) sexual orientation.
  - paxswill 7y ago
    Even this depends. In DC political affiliation is a protected class. https://ohr.dc.gov/protectedtraits https://ohr.dc.gov/protectedtraits
    - hedora 7y ago
      “Political affiliation: belonging to or supporting a political party” Presumably landlords in DC can still kick people out for wearing an Obama / Trump shirt. (That’s supporting a candidate, not a party.) I’d be curious to see court precedents on this.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Political affiliation is not a protected class in the US. You're likely to face enough societal backlash this isn't a common issue though. The problem with the societal sort of regulation is it's about whatever is popular not about discrimination.
  - erichocean 7y ago
    > Political affiliation is not a protected class in the US. It is in California (which, obviously, is located in the US).
- x220 7y ago
  You legally can, but you shouldn't.
- briandear 7y ago
  You actually can.
- wefarrell 7y ago
  Sure you can: https://www.newsweek.com/man-maga-hat-kicked-out-nyc-bar-it-legal-ask-trump-supporters-leave-1359741 https://www.newsweek.com/man-maga-hat-kicked-out-nyc-bar-it-...
int_19h 7y ago
The answer to those questions depends on what your market dominance is. If you're one of many players in the market, and you're all actively competing against each other, then discriminate all you want - somebody else will cover that niche. But if you're the only option for many people, or there are so few options that the market is not really competitive, then yeah, I think it's perfectly legitimate to force companies to not discriminate.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  It's relatively hard to make reliable regulation on "active competition" especially since you're talking about it only being valid with large numbers of players. How is a hosting company with 20 locations supposed to know that today a startup hosting company has closed in Wichita and it can't discriminate anymore since the other competitor in that area upped their per month cost? What defines if competitor #4 farther out qualifies as competition easily enough? Say you did get the regulation down perfectly though and it was dead simple to follow, why should a black rights activist have to do more work to find out which hosting company wouldn't discriminate while others can just click any and go? The popular debate extends to more than whether or not you think a certain position is enforceable as there is also disagreement about what reasonably solving the problem looks like. Some others would argue focusing on what the vast majority opinions are and ignoring the rest provides more value. Others argue it just provides the illusion that everything was solved instead of letting it be brought to mind.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Surely it should work by availability areas? Web hosting is generally a global market. ISPs can have coverage vary inside a city block. As such, it's very nearly impossible for a customer to run out of web hosting options, but they may only have literally one option for internet providers.
    - zamadatix 7y ago
      And who decides what defines every availability area and competition map for every product and service every day to see if there is enough coverage/competition? Or are you arguing for a whitelist-to-discriminate model for things with extremely large coverage areas (perhaps worldwide)? If the latter do you think there are enough of these that can be done easily enough to save complexity/cost overall or is it only applicable to a narrow field e.g. web services and other things still need an answer anyways?
tw04 7y ago
I always look at it as: can I function in society without X. With that in mind, the general consumer can function just fine in society without hosting. Three* things off the top of my head that SHOULD be regulated as a utility but currently aren't: ISP/Broadband access Payment processing Cellphone/telecom It's exceedingly difficult to function in 2019 on a strictly cash basis. Just like it's almost impossible to function in society without broadband. On the other hand, I can get by just fine if "hosting" doesn't agree with some questionable content I want to post online. It's more likely to get me a job than prevent me from getting one....
- zamadatix 7y ago
  This is pretty much how the US has been going about it. It's been a bit laggard as you have noted though. Some say this is good enough and we should work on updating things, others say the societal cost to just do this everywhere can be lower than the societal cost of being slow to update.
devit 7y ago
I think the test should be whether another company could offer a service giving the same result. So for instance this would be fine: - A web hosting company refusing clients, because you can use another one - Amazon refusing to sell the item themselves, because other companies can sell on the Amazon marketplace - A bank refusing a client, since you can just use another bank This would not be fine: - Apple refusing to list an app on the app store, since no else can do so - Amazon refusing to allow an item on its marketplace at all, since there is no other way to sell to people who buy on Amazon - Google banning something from their search engine, since that's the only way to reach people who search with only Google - PayPal refusing a client, since using PayPal is the only way to easily accept payment from PayPal account holders
- zamadatix 7y ago
  What if the service is more expensive? What if it has poor service quality? What if it makes it hard to find because your're unpopular? Can you easily define answers to these everyone can follow for more than just a single business example of hosting? If you can does everyone agree it's fair enough? This is the debate, not whether you think hosting can have an enforceable set of rules.
- bduerst 7y ago
  Which is pretty much where anticompetitive laws are in the U.S. in terms of hurting the consumer. The fringe cases I would worry about are for tiny niche markets where there is only one supplier, or regulatory monopolies (e.g. healthcare networks).
- baroffoos 7y ago
  So the general rule is that if the companies holds some kind of user lock in they now must accept all legal users. Since a hosting company has no such lock in and moving to another one lets you reach exactly the same audience then they are safe.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  That's a good one. Expanding on the banking one. It would be one thing if Wells Fargo wouldn't do business with you. Is another that they flag your ChexSystems Report so you can't open an account anywhere else.
erichocean 7y ago
The answer to all of your questions is..."Are you a platform?" [0] If so, you must accept, by law, all customers/participants/users without prejudice or discrimination, and you may only deny or limit service to same after a written order from a court of law instructing you to do so. Furthermore, this rule supersedes any Terms of Service that a company may wish to enforce. That's not what we have in the US today—but we should. My money is on the EU crafting legislation to that effect first. I'd normally expect California to implement this kind of legislation first, but given the amount of money donated by the big tech companies, I doubt it'll happen. [0] A "platform" is any business with a userbase that exceeds 1% of the population (for non-commercial customers, e.g. YouTube/Twitter/Facebook), or in the case of a business-oriented marketplace (such as Amazon's Seller Central), 10% of the specific market the business is targeting with their platform.
- filoleg 7y ago
  Eh, I would be wary of that definition, even though I am totally in support of platforms not being allowed to get rid of content that isn't illegal. There should be way more nuance than what your definition provides. For example, if I host a very popular forum for discussing cars that somehow manages to exceed 1% of the population of the country it is offered in, I feel like I would be totally justified to remove posts that have nothing to do with cars and talk about completely off-topic stuff like videogames or politics.
  - erichocean 7y ago
    The 1% rule is for the US. If you want a higher % for your own country, knock yourself out. It's the principle of the thing that matters anyway, not the exact % that defines a platform. That said, I see no issue with asking a privately run forum to keep it's membership under 3.4M if they don't want to be regulated like a platform.

httpsterio 7y ago

I think PayPal might've publicly said that this is solely because porn poses a greater risks and SFW businesses just due to the amount of actually fraudulent payments and account hacking performed to pay for porn. Also, there's the less obvious issue with charge backs and people lying about getting hacked and having to deal with all that.

teh_infallible 7y ago
Another reason bitcoin could fill this niche
ianhawes 7y ago
My experience in both digital payments and the adult space is that this line of reasoning (high risk + fraud) is outdated. The myth that adult payments are higher risk is perpetuated by those certain PSPs (CCBill, et al) that process adult payments for 15-20%, require 4% reserves, and have very high setup fees. I would love to see an adult version of Stripe to help innovate payments in the adult industry. Paging @pc???
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  I’d be curious to see that backed up. Having worked in the industry at one time, all I can say is there is a good reason merchant accounts are super expensive for porn sites. All the players in the game are pretty sketch.

xtracto 7y ago

The problem for those providers is often not their own morals per se. But the fear of being related to certain verticals. This oftentimes has a real impact on lost deals from other companies that do have a moral judgment and wont do business with you if you are related say to marijuana selling companies.

Corrado 7y ago
In that case, wouldn't this be a great opportunity to start a payment processor that (mainly) deals with these "fringe" verticals? What's stopping someone from creating MoralPay (or whatever) that accepts all money from adult entertainment, dispensaries, etc. From what I understand there is a huge market for processing legal monies from these types of businesses, especially dispensaries. Is it too difficult in 2019 to start a payment processor? Is there some legal requirement that is preventing it? Some people said that creating a new car company in today's market would be impossible (too many regulations, expense, etc.) but Tesla seems to be doing pretty well. Is there a "Tesla" for the payment processing industry?
- Corrado 7y ago
  I think this might answer my question: https://marker.medium.com/the-companies-venture-capital-isnt-allowed-to-invest-in-a59c4cdd5ae https://marker.medium.com/the-companies-venture-capital-isnt... Would "Vice Ventures" fund a "vice" payment processor? It seems like it would be right up their alley.
- swebs 7y ago
  I believe that was the idea behind Hatereon

ElCapitanMarkla 7y ago

I totally agree with you but I wonder if it’s a moral thing (like those assholes have any) or if it’s a fraud thing. I’ve worked in the online dating space and we always had trouble with payment providers due to a really high rate of fraudulent transactions.

draw_down 7y ago

It’s not obvious, but morality and fraud are linked. People buying something considered immoral, when confronted by a spouse or other loved one, lie and say the charge is fraudulent. In this way “immoral” businesses rack up lots of chargebacks, which pisses off financial institutions. Payment providers need to remain on good terms with those institutions. So dealing with these businesses can create more risk than is worth it. Nobody who runs a payment processor is wagging their finger at camgirls or dispensaries or whatever. They could not care less. I’m not saying it’s fair or good, I’m saying it’s about risk and financial institutions not morality.

JackFr 7y ago

Talk to tobacco about being deplatformed. Tobacco companies have banking, but fewer places sell cigarettes or allow smoking. It’s not discrimination —- neither cam girls or tobacco farmers are a protected class. Payment processing isn’t a right.

solveit 7y ago
The point is that payment processing very well should be a right in this age.
- JackFr 7y ago
  So you want to compel me, against my will, to do business with you, with the full force of government. I would take a more libertarian view and say I don’t want to work with tobacco/guns/cannabis/pornography and I think it’s a bad idea for the government to make me.
  - solveit 7y ago
    I quite agree. I however maintain that everybody should have access to payment processing services regardless. I think this circle can in fact be squared.