Just Doing Business: Why PayPal's Ban is Unethical and Bad Business #censorship #paypal #erotica

With the evolution of the whole furor over PayPal's move to pressure e-Book sellers into culling their virtual shelves of erotica books containing what PayPal considers to be offensive material, I have noticed the same simplistic defense appear over and over again.

Let me quote a commenter on Mercy Pilkington's blog post on the Good E Reader site:

Rob Hurt 13 hours ago

So companies no longer have a choice with whom or how they want to do business? If there were a book about how to rape a two year old (including graphic pictures), should PayPal be forced to accept payment for that, too? It may not be an issue since a book like that would be illegal, but who is PayPal to censor what writers are allowed to imagine?

If people want to write filth, they are welcome to, but what kind of stupid logic says we should force another company to put aside their moral objections and be a part of this?  This is so twisted!

I see a lot of these. First, the commenter presents the most hyperbolic case of an imaginary book containing one of the banned subjects. Then he goes on to argue that PayPal has a right to decide what business it doesn't want to do.

There is a fundamental logic flaw in this argument. PayPal is not a bookseller. They are a microtransaction processor. In essence, they are exactly a bank or a credit card company who facilitates a transfer of funds from the consumer (the book buyer) to the retailer (Smashwords, AllRomance, etc).

In order to understand the subtle but concrete difference, let me offer you a metaphor:

You've been shopping in a bookstore. You walk up to the counter with the books you want to purchase. You hand your credit or debit card over to the cashier and she rings up your purchases, and takes your card.

But your transaction is denied. Your card is not accepted.

Why? Because the credit card company or your bank doesn't like the books you've purchased.

If PayPal was in the business of selling books, it would have every right to refuse to stock books it didn't want to sell. BUT THAT IS NOT THE BUSINESS IT IS IN. It is in the business of monetary transfer. Now, if the item you were purchasing was a lizard on the endangered species list and, therefore, an illegal product, it would have every right to refuse to process the transaction arguing that participating in the sale makes it a party in the illegal transfer of funds (the business it is in) and therefore liable under the law for facilitating a crime .

But these books are NOT illegal. Writing them is legal. Publishing them is legal. Selling them is legal and reading them is legal, too.

So, next time you hear the argument that PayPal has a right to pick and choose what sales it processes, please remember that there is a fundamental flaw in this defense. And for the imaginative among you, consider how much power this puts in the hands of banks and financial institutions if PayPal gets away with this. With more and more purchases being made on the internet, think about just how fundamentally online financial institutions could manipulate the market for their own moral stances, political agendas, or simply to financially benefit product companies owned by the same conglomerate.

If this doesn't frighten you, it should.