Last week, BannedWriters wrote an open letter to MasterCard, asking them if they could confirm or deny whether pressure from them was behind PayPal’s move to refuse the sale of erotica books containing taboo subject matter. Below is a copy of the answer from Chris Monteiro, Corporate Public Relations, MasterCard Incorporated:
From: Monteiro, Chris <Chris_Monteiro@mastercard.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 3:24 AM
Subject: RE: An Open Letter to Mastercard Incorporated Regarding the Censorship of E-Books
To: bannedwriters@gmail.comDear Ms. Morris,
Thank you for your inquiry as to whether MasterCard played a role in the recent decision by PayPal to limit certain content belonging to your members. We appreciate the opportunity to explain our policies and hope to provide clarity regarding this matter. To be clear, MasterCard had no involvement in the decision made by PayPal to refuse to process payments for certain books.
MasterCard maintains a set of standards that prohibit the use of MasterCard-branded cards and systems for illegal activities. These standards require MasterCard’s customers to comply with all applicable laws and not to engage in illegal behavior, or in behavior that would cause MasterCard to violate any laws. In this particular scenario, MasterCard would not take action regarding the use of its cards and systems for the sale of lawful materials that seek to explore erotica content of this nature.
We appreciate the opportunity to address this important issue and hope we have addressed your inquiry.
Regards,
More good news 😉 Paypal is hanging out in the wind all alone, it seems 😉
My guess is the whole ‘pressure from financial partners’ thing was just a shabby lie.
If that’s the case, I’m disgusted by PayPal’s behavior. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt here, but this isn’t looking good for them.
Oh PayPal, you shall rue the day that all these amazing social networkers revealed your lies. Good work y’all! I’m interested to see their response.
Thanks for letting me know about this. I updated my post and linked to this one.
Guys…Did you see Smashwords’ latest news? There’s been a new development ^.^
http://eripike.blogspot.com/2012/03/paypal-censorship-update-breakthrough.html
[…] letters responding to inquiries from Banned Writers, Visa and MasterCard have very publicly denied that they had any involvement in PayPal’s decision not to accept […]
[…] card processors and their particulars when it comes to sex. He heard the news about Paypal and Mastercard and Visa, and he rejoiced. Finally! He was going to be able to sell all those books the CC […]
[…] card processors and their particulars when it comes to sex. He heard the news about Paypal and Mastercard and Visa, and he rejoiced. Finally! He was going to be able to sell all those books the CC […]