Agreed. I saw a great quote from OVH's managing director about how it's not up to them to decide, and it's not up to the politicians to decide, but it's up to the courts. That's the kind of service provider I want.

And twitter. They haven't shut down the wikileaks account, and my wild guess is that it's not because nobody is pressuring them too.

Good point, sorry, I'd forgotten about them.

So since Visa and mastercard vet all their customers so carefully they presumably approve of any porn child or otherwise that is bought on their cards.

I don't think that's entirely fair because if they are aware of a merchant doing such a thing they'd be shut down in a heartbeat.

That said I really don't think they have any business shutting down the flow of funds between parties that have not actually been sentenced (or even accused) of a crime of sorts.

It's a great 'operation ore' defence though. If a web site was offering payment by Visa/Mastercard then I assumed it was all legal when I signed up to download the pictures - because MC/Visa vet their customers.

Note to foreigners: operation ore was a UK police sweep to arrest pedophiles solely on the evidence that their credit card numbers had been used on child porn sites in the US. The judge rejected claims that the credit cards could have been stolen because of the strenuous efforts credit card companies put into security.

> The judge rejected claims that the credit cards could have been stolen because of the strenuous efforts credit card companies put into security.

Man I would have liked to be an expert witness in that case.

That judge ought to be thrown off the bench for talking out of his honorable ass. Credit card fraud with stolen numbers is so rampant it's not even funny, we reject probably around 40% of the charges (and the users don't complain, right?).

Typically it is not the credit card companies (or the banks) that go to great lengths to protect the card holders but it is the IPSPs and the merchants that try to do the best they can, only to find out that they're holding the bag if a charge is ever contested because VISA, MC and other card companies/issuers do not do anything whatsoever.

What business do you run? Is the stolen CC # problem greater with certain kinds of businesses than others?

> What business do you run?

I run a web service with a subscription component, friends of mine run an IPSP.

> Is the stolen CC # problem greater with certain kinds of businesses than others?

Yes, absolutely. If you run a service targeted at businesses or teachers or other 'nice' people you're likely not going to see much, if any of this. If you run a site that sells physical goods you'll get plenty but you will be able to do some pretty good checks before shipping the goods and you'll have a signature from a recipient. You will likely also have a list of destinations you do not serve.

If those are not your target markets then all bets are off and you will likely get bitten badly before you learn the rules by which the game is played.

Holy crap. A simple trip to Wikipedia will reveal that there was over 500 million pounds worth of credit card fraud per year at last count; I can only hope the judge was immediately impeached.

edited to correct 3 order of magnitude error (thanks, jacquesm); but at least I was much closer than a judge, and not using that figure for binding decisions ruining many peoples' lives.

That's million, not billion.

And It's worse than that actually, that's the portion that is detected.