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Paypal Forces E-Book Publisher To Censor Erotic Content

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

hey! writes "On February 18 of this year, global giant payment processor PayPal sent eBook publisher Smashwords an ultimatum: if Smashwords didn't remove all eBooks with certain erotic content from its catalog in the next several days, PayPal would immediately stop handling payments. Smashword's TOS already precluded child pornography, but now PayPal wants them to also censor depictions of consenting, non-related adults acting out incest fantasies. Likewise, fantasy novels in which human characters transform into non-humans are affected if those characters have sex. ZDNet has a summary of the impact of these changes, which would among other things ban Vladmir Nabokov's Lolita. As outrage mounts, finger pointing is in full swing. Smashwords blames PayPal, and PayPal blames the banks it deals with. The crux seems to be that erotica buyers have a higher rate of 'chargebacks' — customers who buy stuff then demand their money back. Fair enough, but is a customer really more likely to return a book because it depicts one kind of fantasy between consenting adults vs. another? Perhaps the problem is just the quality of writing." Note: as you can probably tell from the summary, the linked articles (while factual in nature) discuss subjects that may not be suitable for workplace reading.

8 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. It's in Paypal's nature. Just stop using them. by Eldragon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I deleted my Paypal account six outrages ago.

    Every week I read about how some small business got burned by Paypal. However I have yet to encounter any business willing to drop Paypal and use the competition.

    Petitions and strongly worded blog posts will not change Paypal's behavior. Only thing that matters is lost business.

  2. The man who fell to Earth? by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did they also request removal of works with aliens who turn into humans and have sex with real humans?
    It's been used in a Hollywood movie.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    1. Re:The man who fell to Earth? by Gerzel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Or gods as animals having sex with humans. (Looking at you Zeus)

    2. Re:The man who fell to Earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well they've banned the bible (Genesis 6:2). Anyone know about the Koran?

  3. Re:Take your business elsewhere by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, it was the other way around not too long ago. With the first Humble Indie Bundle, there was still some piracy. Unlike the usual execs, the people behind it asked why? The largest response was because they inly took Paypal. Now they take Amazon and Google Checkout as well. Yep... Boycotts work.

  4. As someone in the payments industry... by Firehed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hate to defend anything PayPal does - but they're absolutely telling the truth here: their partner banks are complaining (for whatever stupid, arbitrary reason), and they risk having those accounts closed (read: kill the company) if they don't stop providing merchant services for the seller in the article. One of the things that screws you over when you're only pretending to be a bank.

    Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see paypal refuse to comply with their partner banks and get shut down, but we all know that's not going to happen. There's a ton of stupid things they do that are certainly their fault, but this is (based on my own experience with bitchy partner banks) not one of them.

    --
    How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
    1. Re:As someone in the payments industry... by Ecuador · · Score: 4, Interesting

      One of the things that screws you over when you're only pretending to be a bank.

      Ehh, you got it backwards, Paypal is pretending NOT to be a bank when they are one (they hold customers' funds and they issue lines of credit), to avoid regulation that would prevent them from profiting by screwing their users (most of whom can't help using them due to ebay being a monopoly).

      What is peculiar is that if "poor" paypal got a complaint from a bank that there are many charge-backs that are costing them, they would not threaten to cut them off (they would lose more than paypal), but pass the carge-back cost to them and paypal could pass it to their customer. But paypal never does anything logical or good, they usually do whatever boneheaded move is the easiest for them and they think will not hurt their bottom-line, even if it screws some customers. After all, they have the online auction monopoly which guarantees them customers that have no alternative (the definition of anti-trust violation IMHO), so they never care about sounding bad.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  5. If You Leave, PayPal Won't Care by IonOtter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I left Paypal about six months ago. I'd never been screwed over by them, but I saw so many other people getting screwed, that I felt why leave myself open like that? Because I have used Paypal to purchase porn in the past.

    Leaving and cancelling my account was almost alarmingly easy. Just delete a few things, clean up the history, then click on the "delete account" button. *bink* Done.

    No blubbery emails, no phone calls, no nuthin, just a "Thanks" and a slamming door. And I had a merchant account from selling stuff on eBay, too.

    I think this is one of those cases where Paypal is making so much money, they honestly don't need to give a shit.

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