Good By to PayPal
So you may have noticed that the donation button have been taken down and you can only sign up for a membership with CCbill again. This is because Paypay has permanently frozen my account on the basis that Exeirn is “obscene” . Specifically I have this reason given form Mike (no last name just Mike) of Paypals Brand Risk Management:
“Your website, while a portion of it is not in violation, there are places where nudity is present and the member’s area of your website is marketed as containing more nudity. Nudity in any form or degree is considered obscene and our Acceptable Use Policy prohibits these products. Nudity in any form or degree is considered obscene and our Acceptable Use Policy prohibits these products.”
Now this reason gives me more questions that answers since is seems to fly in the face of paypal’s standard operating procedure and the common sense definition of obscene. If paypal was a government I would say it violated my free speech rights but it’s a company and not required to follow the first amendment. I can’t help but suspect that there is something else in Exiern that they have a problem with and are using this excessively broad definition of obscene as a cover. Paypal doesn’t apply the definition of obscene uniformly across all their clients. When you see something like this it is often a method a company uses to engage in discriminatory practices without codifying the discrimination, since codifying the discrimination would open them up to lawsuit.
Looking around I suspect the TG is the reason paypal came down so hard. They do seem to be excessively stringent on anything that is considered “alternative lifestyle”. In Paypals world it seems nudity is ok, LGBT as an academic subject is ok, but LGBT and nudity that is obscene. But I can prove nothing and once you’re locked out of paypal there is no appeals process or way to get reinstated. So the upshot is we can no longer use paypal on this site.
This is going to hurt profits and further marginalized the comic. Not much I can do about that. I must say whoever though up of using paypal as a weapon against exiern it was a brilliant strategy. Except you know the real websites that suffer because of this will be Blade Bunny and Knit Princess. And also I was in the process of moving away from the nudity towards more straight story and now I am feeling the pressure to put the nudity back to make up the loss in profits. So it was brilliant except it produced the exact opposite result they were looking for.
Discussion ¬
They just can’t keep their noses out of other people’s business.
I suggest you open a bank account for people to send their donations to. It’s a bit more complicated, but still better than having no donation possibility at all.
In short: f*.*g nazis… I didn’t use my PayPal account much, but I think I’ll cancel it with an appropriate comment. “Free world” indeed… It is as “free” as Iran or South Korea – only the methods of control, manipulation and enforcement are little more subtle.
Dullahan: bank account is nice, but keep in mind that international money transfers tend to be quite costly. That’s the main advantage of using PayPal – it’s more “global”.
Don’t go canceling the account on behalf of me.
1) Paypal is way to big to care.
2) As a company they have the right to set what ever standards they want. You can’t really complain about the lack of porn on the Disney Chanel after all.
You would only be hurting yourself in the long run. No point in that.
It’s the uneven application of this policy that is the scary part. A company policy that is applied selectively can be a tool for discrimination. That’s where I worry. Paypal can set any standards they want it’s their right as a private company. But if they are using the standards to target certain groups then that is a real problem.
Sadly there is no way to know if this is discrimination of incompetence with out a lot more time and research. More than anyone can afford to do. Frankly this is how companies get away with breaking the 14 amendment these days. They cloak their actions in secrecy and have harsh usage agreements that are only partially enforced unless they don’t like your particular group/race/belief system.
In short welcome to the military industrial complex everyone where your rights are protected as long as your rich or popular. If I was a bigger name in comics or on the web maybe we could raise a fuss. But this is just a small corner with a small audience and we don’t have the number to make anyone take notice.
This is so bizzare, of course once you shift away from the nudity model they slam you on it. I really feel bad for you; I am sorry that you ended up on the wrong end of some corporate troll’s hitlist.
I don’t know, maybe they have it in for webcomics in particular. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen outright porn sites that accept PayPal; but I know of at least one comic artist who insists on checks (rather than PayPal) for more-adult commissioned work that never appears on the web.
How’s this for 2 faced. Since Ebay took over Paypal it’s just fine to pay for adult material bought at their auctions.
Paypal, what the hell. I did go through the User Agreement Policy to find that it does redirect you to the Acceptance Use Policy in the Section 9 Restricted Activities. However this is quite out of the way even for a normal policy as I’ve seen.
Anyway, sorry about the lost profit but Good riddance to it.
How in the hell does a website like Slipshine get away with it then ?
This doesn’t surprise me in the least. As a member of deviantART, I’ve known for a while that PayPal when artists like Fernando Faria http://14-bis.deviantart.com D.C. Matthews http://www.dcmstudiosonline.com and Philip Jackson http://www.collectedcurios.com can’t use PayPal to sell their comics, collect donations or take commissions. Well, okay, they get away with the commission thing because no one states what the commission regards. But, you see my point.
i suspect it has more to do with the nazi symbolism in picture under the members link, as they probably didnt pay to get to the members section to see whats obscene and whats not.
Slipshine gets away with it? I had no idea. (And checking the site doesn’t show any PayPal links, so where did you get the idea that they ‘get away’ with anything?)
I always assumed that any kind of nudity that could be considered even slightly pornographic would make PayPal take action. Assuming that someone actually reports the website to PayPal, because I definitely don’t think that they bother checking websites as long as no one complains. And naturally, if a comic becomes well known and/or is controversial, someone is more likely to report it because they don’t like it.
I also get the impression that PayPal is a highly automated outfit, which is one of the reasons why I haven’t refilled my account. I don’t want to play email pong with bots even when it doesn’t concern my money.
Beats me why they’re allowed to do that. Or rather, I understand perfectly well why they’re allowed to do that, but they shouldn’t be. Just as banks shouldn’t be permitted to refuse you an account based purely on your business model (though of course they are free to refuse you overdraft facilities).
– Jake
Most attempts at censorship have the exact opposite effect. If its publicly known it makes people curious as to what the big deal is so they go out of their to find out. If its quieter – like in this case – it makes the person work harder (and more subtly) to get the message out (or the comic in this case), and often pushes them to do more of what the Powers That Be don’t like (for varying reasons – ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, anger response, need to capitalize on *something*, etc.)
Being offended because some guys get turned to girls is a tad odd.
PayPal is probably large enough that it will be different people interpreting the rules at different times, which means it will be inconsistent. The Apple store is exactly the same for the i-things. “Porn is bad!” exclaims Steve Jobs – except for the Playboy App, the Sports Illustrated App, and so on.
According to their website, Slipshine only uses CCBill, not Paypal. I’m also on the Paypal site right now, and if you look at the Acceptable Use Policy, it says physical goods are fine while digital goods are not. I also remember some nudist class action lawsuit against Paypal. I think Paypal is also banned for Adult Only listings on Ebay, too. I’m not sure if that’s changed.
Paypal also probably doesn’t check through all accounts right away, unless there’s some sort of report.
That doesn’t mean that the account freeze sucks any less, though.
A couple of very ignorant questions, from a UK point of view…
1) Does the US make it unlawful for businesses to discriminate (when providing services) on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity? And if so, is there a government body that monitors companies’ compliance with the law, or is it down to the individual to litigate?
2) Is the suspension of the account a permanent ban on Drowemos, or is it a suspension of the Exiern account? If Exiern (the comic, not the site) was entirely separated from the members’ area, being spun off as a new entity (and any remaining nudity was edited out), then could a new account be opened for it? I appreciate that might make problems for maintaining the members’ area audience and subscription, but if the loss of income from losing Paypal donations is large enough, then it might be the lesser of two evils.
Anyway, just a couple of thoughts.
In the US there is no federal law preventing discrimination based on sexuality. However Paypal cooperate headquarters are located in the state of California which does have pretty strict laws on these things. The real trick would be proving discrimination. I am not even sure myself if they are discriminating or just being haphazard.
Technically the ban is on the account not the person but I can’t use the same bank accounts if I were to set up a new one and the domain name is black listed so I can never use paypal on Exiern ever again. That’s the really unfair thing about this. Even if I tried to accommodated their requirements once your baned for obscenity there is no appeal and no way to lift the ban. It’s actually easier to come back from ban based on fraud. In short it’s ok with paypal if you steal peoples money but don’t consensually show them the naked human figure that’s just wrong.
I am in the process of legally separating Blade Bunny and Knit Princess from Exiern. It’s a pain in the neck but that should solve the problem with them. I know it would be illegal for papal to ban any account associated with an individual employee of a company.
I think you should try to sue them under California laws, but get support for the cost by a civil rights organisation.
Another thing that would need of federal involvement would implement the same rules as we have in the European Union of banning unnecessary bank fees between banks and even countries in the union. That means it cost me no more to transfer money between my own bank account than to transfer money from Sweden to some others account i – let say – Germany. That mean not a penny. This is based on the rule that banks can not charge me a fee above their cost for transferring money between banks i different countries. And since te money transfers is mostly by clearing debts and credits between banks and no transfers of actual money it cost them nothing. Therfore it cost me nothing. So I do not need Paypal. Why don’t you try it in the US. But you have to talk with your congress representative.
Chers
I am not the one to have that fight with paypal. Someone else with better standing would have to try. Exiern was marginal to begin with and while the decision may have been motivated by something unsavory there is no way to prove it. Right now all we have is that it looked a little weird. That’s not enough to do anything about. In this case we just have to accept that who ever didn’t like exiern got the better of us. They won this round.
(1) do you have a snail-mail address? I’d like to send a small donation, but I’ve been hesitant about PayPal in this regard anyway …
(2) Would it work to donate to your other comics via Pay Pal when that is set up with some sort of memo saying “I support Ex too.”
DO NOT mention exiern in any other comic donation that I am associated with. It will just get that account shut down to.
I will be setting up a PO box in the next couple of days for people to mail things to if they wish.
Sorry to hear about you vs. Paypal. I thought they objected to sexual imagery, not simply nudity. The first time I heard about Paypal freezing accounts was in 2004/2005 when they put a lock on White Lightning Productions (Milkmaid, Peter is the Wolf) at wlpcomics.com. I think they were banned for life, lol. The following year, Lisa M. Hayes, artist of Ultra Fem, among other things, had her account frozen for peddling sexual imagery as well (http://ultrafem.blogspot.com). Then for a few 5+ years I didn’t hear anymore about the practice.
As someone already pointed out, Phillip M. Jackson uses Paypal for his commissions and e-books without incident, and some other adult-themed artists as well whom I don’t want to “out”. This led me to believe Paypal had mellowed out or no longer enforced that policy. Not so, obviously.
I put up a donation button on my website, http://www.blondemarvel.com, to facillitate commissions and my account was “limited” soon after. “Limited” meant I could at least withdraw the money I had in there, which was a close call since I had over $200 and it was close to Christmas. At least they didn’t seize my funds for 180 days like they did some other accounts.
Moral: Paypal and boobies don’t mix.
I should probably be careful with what i charge people for on it, then, but I’m not sure…
It’s not linked to a particular site, for me – I get commissioned to write stories, by the word. (Sometimes those stories are erotic, though. ^^; And they’re definitely TG. But my account isn’t directly connected to anything that shows them.
Mostly I just don’t wanna break the rules, though.
you could always add the option to use an alternative service like Google checkout. i haven’t used or know if it would work for anything but its defiantly a good alternative to no donations at all.
I am considering all my options at this point. Thanks for the sugestion
By the way, there is a law against distribution of obscene material, but what counts “obscene” has specific requirements:
Whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards”, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,
Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. (Thank wikipedia.)
Frankly, I don’t think it applies to either of us. ^^; Exiern tells an actual story, at the very least, and many stories include sex and the like, which exiern (to my knowledge) doesn’t.
Paypal is not a government. They can set any rules or definitions they want. One of the dangers of “privatization” is that companies are not accountable to the public.
It’s just the nudity, no conspiracy theories required. Mike probably didn’t look at your site long enough to realise there was transgender theme.
A friend of mine had her Paypal frozen due to her stock photos she was providing for artists having tateful nudity. They simply have zero tolerance for nudity as it saves them debating which nudity is and isn’t tasteful.
They’re a business. You’re a name in their book. It’s not all about you.
Probably so but we all know of plenty of website that use paypal and have nudity. Deviant art for a prime example. If they have 0 tolerance then it should be uniformly applied. Do otherwise and then there will be conspiracy theories. At best under the current system Paypal has the ability to discriminate even if they are not currently doing it. Thats; still not a good thing.
Drowemos, just to let you know, your plight finally goaded me into taking a membership, something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile now. I notice that Visa has also caved to the torches-and-pitchforks crowd, and I had to sign up for direct withdrawal. Still worth it!
These multinational corporations scoff at ordinary consumers and governments, but they cower before maddened self-righteous soccer moms who see the devil under every bush. Many deserving writers and artists are forced to jump through expensive and time-consuming hoops because their servers bow to the whims of blue-nosed citizens, many of whom weild their supposedly offended mores as weapons of self-importance and power.
btw, Blade Bunny rocks!
Have you concidered using google checkout? Ive heard that lots of websites use it instead of paypal, and alot less hassles (acording to a friend of a friend that uses it). Ive also heard amazon has a pay system you might want to check out its called Amazon Simple Pay Standard
There is nothing suspicious about it and I have evidence to indicate it has nothing at all to do with the transgender issue.
http://transequality.org/donate.html
Paypal also takes payments from Ebay which can sell (not many) items with nudity. The difference between you and those businesses is that those business are:
* huge clients that warrant more time and expense in maintaining
* have their own regulations that Paypal has found agreeable
* have all their content accessible immediately without concern about subscription orientated members areas
* a evidence of a huge business model that is different to the “adult site” model and thousands of transactions to prove they are realable, legit and low risk
What you have is a comic with nudity to promote it and a members area that promises more adult content. The only regulation of content is yourself, and the content constantly changes/increases as more comics etc come out. Your business is pretty much exactly the same model and similar content to other adult sites and those are considered high risk in the payment processing business (which is why adult payment processors charge so much).
In short, you don’t warrant the risk and expense Paypal making an exception for you. Just like you don’t warrant the expense of a bank getting you your own card processing account. You have a small private site which has a members area that you update yourself, if you were to stop updating it tomorrow and it resulted in heaps of your customers demanding their money back Paypal would have to wear the cost.
Realistically, someone probably saw something THEY thought was offensive and then went and reported you to Paypal. That’s generally how it works (as they don’t have the manpower to troll every site that uses their service). Once they got enough complaints, they looked at the site, saw the donations were going to ‘soft-core’ images, and terminated you.
It truly sucks, but that’s the way it is.
I recently returned from a trip in Madrid and Tenerife (also Spain) where I had to use WiFi from hotels (horrid quality…)
Exieren is blocked by their filters as belonging to the category “pornography”. WTF???
PayPal was a great way of making donations – not only to this site. I guess I’ll have to find something else.
Paypal is obscene — that’s a well-known thing. The more of us are denied the use of those crooks, the more likely better alternatives gain traction.
For a business that transfers money, (pocketing some of it in the process,) they sure are picky about how you earn it. There are no legal concerns, and it is irrelevant to the service they provide. Could a bank refuse to let you make transactions because you’re a stripper or something? No? Why the hell should PayPal be able to do that, it’s not like you’re claiming they friggin endorse or sponsor you. I find the recent spate of horrible bear puns more obscene and offensive than any amount of casual nudity.
What I find most offensive is if Paypal shuts you down for ‘breaking policy’ they keep the money. I think they should be legally required to give you the money, or refund the money to each person who sent it. They tried that s!!t with the maker of Minecraft a while back when money started pouring in, probably not expecting it to have such a strong fanbase behind it already.
We need to bring paypal to the attention of our governments and request stricter regulation of the company in order to stop them from trying to discriminate and rip people off to steal their money.
It is regrettable that pay pal would do this do you, but as you said it is their business and they can use whatever policy that they want to choose not to do business with you. However from reading the various articles, it seems to me that there is a great opportunity for some enterprising person who doesn’t have a problem with nudity or images of a sexual nature to create a rival electronic payment system! Imagine all the mArket share that someone can take away from the likes of pay pal and visa simply because you are less restrictive. And if the server was based somewhere like singapore or hong kong, then there are fewer legal restrictions the company has to worry about and the company can be less concerned about defining what is “inappropriate.”. Anybody want to start a business?
Those a!s holes did the same thing to wiki-leaks. It’s about time we get a big as petition set up and have everyone sign it, demanding that the government force big business to adhere to the bill of rights. I mean, That is what those ten amendments are supposed to do, right? Protect us?
(Sarcasm) Ah, you see that’s inviting ‘big government’ to simply come in and take over. You see if citizens could ever band together and use their collective power to take action against powerful individuals it would lead to cannibalism and communist takeover. That’s why unions and protesters demanding that the money they pay in taxes be used in ways they deem more appropriate are such a threat. (Sarcasm) Government by the people hasn’t been popular in years, mainly because people duck out of regular interaction in such affairs leaving the politicking to the politicians, who in turn cut as many people out of the club as possible thinking it’s much more democratic to let people with less ‘official’ power call the shots. Also, it’s far less work and keeps the campaign contributions coming.
Well, here’s yet -another- reason that I do not and will not ever use PayPal. Saw you said that you’ll be setting up a PO Box, though, Drowemos, so I think I will be sending a small donation in the form of cash or money order by snail mail once you do.
from a business prospective i can understand why they choose to not work with “adult Content” even if i dont agree with it. It’s all about keeping a ‘clean’ image, wallmart and many sporting goods stores that sell guns and ammo dont sell pistols or any rifle that might be considered an “assault rifle” because they dont want groups protesting them. paypal doesnt want to be associated with adult content because if they didn’t they would be plagued by every porn company on the web. Its sites like this that get punished though. I doubt that paypal found out about this on its own i suspect someone must have reported youand that’s the bigger shock in my oppinion
must be those worms from the Crimitism site
Have you considered GPal? Similar to PayPal, but created because the creators disliked PayPal’s restrictions on what could and could not be paid for with the service.
“GPal is an alternative to PayPal™, Google Checkout™ and OfferPal™ that does not discriminate based on the nature of your transaction, requiring only that the merchandise or services you purchase be legal. See our User Agreement and About Us for more.”
I had a run in with PayPal a couple of years ago, and have stopped using them at all since then. There are credit card clearing houses that will work with small businesses, I think the http://www.paypalsucks.com/ site has links. Ps if you post that link on eBay they will cancel your account ( even though they claim they aren’t the same company ). Credit card companies will actually do more to defend you anyhow. I think they just want the 2.5% cut.
I know the Inkdolls wencomic lost their paypal too.
Personally, I think Paypal has gone mad.
It’s sad when boobies are considered more harmful than children shot in the face with a gun.
Besides, what’s so wrong about boobies … or nudity even ?
EGS still uses Paypal, so TG, or even the TG/webcomic combination, isn’t the problem here. Odds are, someone complained about the nudity to Paypal, and they used the Sliding Scale of Morality to bring the Hammer of Censorship down on this site.
Check these out:
http://www.screw-paypal.com/alternatives/top_pick.html
http://blog.webdistortion.com/2010/07/28/paypal-alternatives-e-commerce/
Don’t go in favor of more nudity. You’ll get more people with good story and well-placed nudity rather than just more nudity.
you should argue their position. the website jlist has paypal as an acceptable paymethod for their products aslong as your order does not contain any adult specific items. they have not been restricted from using paypal just because they sell them however.
Paypal is by no means quick at applying this policy or active in policing, but once they’re attention is drawn to it they’re very consistent about applying it. In fact, they can be MUCH too broad, banning entire virtual hosting groups.
Sorry you got nailed by it though. Hopefully you can find something better.
Interesting that Zivity.com uses PayPal. What’s up with that?