Fergie's Tech Blog

Their Kingdom for a PornPal

Randy Dotinga writes in Wired News:

Porn-site operators have long found that it's easy to make a buck in the online adult industry. The hard part is getting the entire $1 into your hands.

In the United States, adult webmasters typically use credit-card processors that take 10 percent to 15 percent out of each charge in return for accepting the risk of working with an industry known for its high level of "chargebacks." Those are the refunds -- a huge hassle for Visa and MasterCard -- that customers often get when they claim there's absolutely no possible way they signed up for an $80 annual membership to, say, a balloon-fetish sex site.

Now, some porn insiders think they have a better idea: Why not reduce fees by directly tapping the checking accounts of users with a billing system like PayPal?

posted by Fergie @ 7/21/2005 07:27:00 AM