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Lynnxz -> RE: IS THIS AN ADULT BDSM SITE OR NOT? (4/12/2008 10:02:27 AM)
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Here, this is what would happen to CollarMe
quote:
Q: Why did Intersec Interactive, Inc. sell insex.com?
A: There are two main reasons:
(1) The lack of ability to obtain a stable and reliable merchant account with a US bank.
(2) The potential for an annoying, lengthy and expensive obscenity prosecution.
With respect to reason (1), it would seem that the current US administration found itself in the position of being beholden to the anti-erotica religious right, yet at at the same time unable to make any significant inroads against adult producers using the court system. Faced with failed prosecutions and a stubborn court system that repeatedly ruled in favor of adult producers, the administration came up with what some people no doubt thought was a very clever way to do an end run around the legal barriers it faced protecting privacy and freedom of expression. The government went after the banks and the credit card processing companies, warning them that processing transactions for adult businesses ran a high risk of laundering money for terrorism and formally advising them against taking on any new accounts for adult businesses and to take steps to close the accounts of existing ones.
The net result after two years of government pressure is that it is all but impossible to get a merchant account with a US bank for an adult web site. Unfortunately, it would seem that no one thought far enough ahead about what would happen when a several billion dollar a year industry was gradually forced to move their processing overseas - where money laundering for terrorist organizations is a much more real possibility now that all that money increasingly goes through shady banks in Asia and Eastern Europe instead of the US banking system where it used to be able to be monitored effectively.
With respect to reason (2), recent developments related to changes in US law and government policy have made Intersec Interactive, Inc. a clear target for prosecution. Revisions to adult record keeping requirements and the creation of a federal task force specifically targeting producers that create media featuring urination, defication, sadism and masochism have caused Intersec Interactive, Inc. to decide that continuing to produce insex.com from the US would be too great a potential liability.
While Intersec Interactive, Inc. is certain that a potential prosecution would have no chance of success based upon insex.com's artistic and educational value, especially in light of other recent high profile obscenity prosecution failures, the staff is unwilling to fight a lengthy and expensive court battle only to emerge victorious but bankrupt.
The new owner of insex.com, a Dutch citizen with a company based in the Netherlands, is outside the jurisdiction of US law and therefore does not face the problems that Intersec Interactive, Inc. does.
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