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> They of course are free to work with or not work with whatever vendors they choose Don’t like Standard Oil? Just heat your home and cook your food with some

> They of course are free to work with or not work with whatever vendors they choose Don’t like Standard Oil? Just heat your home and cook your food with someone else’s oil! I’m tired of hearing this argument to defend technology monopolies and duopolies. If you have no legal reason to deny services to someone, don’t. That would mean baking cakes for gay weddings if you’re a baker open to the public and processing credit card payments for pornography if you’re a payment processor.

gamblor956 6y ago
But in this case, it appears they do have legal reasons for denying services. The company was aware of it's CP problem and didn't do much to stop it. Now they have a very strong incentive to police their site.
- nostromo 6y ago
  But why are we looking to MasterCard to police pornography on the internet and not our government?
  - FemmeAndroid 6y ago
    Because that's a false dichotomy and we are looking to both.
chadlavi 6y ago
I think the more apt analogy might be choosing not to sell flour to that jerk who runs the anti-gay cake store anymore because you don't want to be caught up in the bad PR. I'm pretty sure you can still use MasterCard to fund a PayPal account, which can be used to buy any manner of thing, so it's not purely that Mastercard doesn't want their money being used to buy illegal things. They just don't want to be associated with it.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Except you can't pay for Pornhub with PayPal, as PayPal can't be used to buy pornography. Not even the legal kind. They won't even take the proceeds. Venmo is owned by PayPal and has the same policies. Google Pay also has an explicit ban on pornography. As does Apple Pay. As does Samsung Pay. In fact, I don't think any balance-carrying service available to Americans even theoretically allows paying for porn.
  - chadlavi 6y ago
    That's interesting, I didn't know that. So in this case MasterCard is really sort of joining an established bloc among their peers? Though I guess they're not saying "no more porn" right out, just this one vendor it sounds like.

gamblor956 6y ago

But in this case, it appears they do have legal reasons for denying services. The company was aware of it's CP problem and didn't do much to stop it. Now they have a very strong incentive to police their site.

nostromo 6y ago
But why are we looking to MasterCard to police pornography on the internet and not our government?
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  Because that's a false dichotomy and we are looking to both.

chadlavi 6y ago

I think the more apt analogy might be choosing not to sell flour to that jerk who runs the anti-gay cake store anymore because you don't want to be caught up in the bad PR. I'm pretty sure you can still use MasterCard to fund a PayPal account, which can be used to buy any manner of thing, so it's not purely that Mastercard doesn't want their money being used to buy illegal things. They just don't want to be associated with it.

freeone3000 6y ago
Except you can't pay for Pornhub with PayPal, as PayPal can't be used to buy pornography. Not even the legal kind. They won't even take the proceeds. Venmo is owned by PayPal and has the same policies. Google Pay also has an explicit ban on pornography. As does Apple Pay. As does Samsung Pay. In fact, I don't think any balance-carrying service available to Americans even theoretically allows paying for porn.
- chadlavi 6y ago
  That's interesting, I didn't know that. So in this case MasterCard is really sort of joining an established bloc among their peers? Though I guess they're not saying "no more porn" right out, just this one vendor it sounds like.