Visa, MasterCard, and American Express are each individually bigger than Sony (but comparable). Certainly Sony is big enough that it can negotiate with them, bu

Visa, MasterCard, and American Express are each individually bigger than Sony (but comparable). Certainly Sony is big enough that it can negotiate with them, but its hard to imagine them being able to dictate terms. So, Sony may be allowed to store CVV numbers, but if so its likely that they negotiated that, giving up something in return (possibly, for example, agreeing to penalties in event of disclosure). [note: I checked bigger in terms of market cap. I'm confident this is also true in any reasonable way of comparing.]