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Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

economist.com

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Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#261

Post by autoexec »

542458 wrote: post #211
ashtonkem wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment they’re legally allowed to they will be all over legal weed. It’s not like the finance industry has any issues profiting from other recreational substances, such as alcohol or tobacco.

Agreed. Any suggestion that “the banks won’t deal with $GROUP even though they could be making money” is an allegation that the banks aren’t actually very profit-motivated. This allegation seems unlikely to me. As far as I can tell, the stuff the banks won’t touch is either legally risky (weed) or financially risky.

It's strange. On one hand banks and payment processors have been shown to bow to public pressure and turn away money in exchange for a little PR, but on the other hand banks also have no problems working with terrorists and cartels which are very much legally risky.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/07/16/hsbc-h...

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#262

Post by jaywalk »

kroltan wrote: post #248
jaywalk wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are standards, however making them "open" wouldn't change anything. You've obviously never tried to integrate with a large number of separate entities before.

I have not, I've just clarified the point of the parent in case you misread. But now I'm curious, what are the challenges with having a large number of entities implement a standard? Is it "just" the shrink-wrap effect of having a few-initial or large players, is it getting the parties involved to even agree to the standard, or what?

You are talking about a many-to-many relationship here. Every payment processor has to ensure their system works with every bank, and vice versa. So the standard defines the data format, great. What happens when Payment Provider #223 has an issue communicating with Bank #16252? On an even bigger scale, who is going to maintain all of the necessary technical info for the parties to all interoperate? Who will handle fraud detection? Who will be liable for fraud that goes undetected?

Credit card companies handle all of that and much more in exchange for transaction fees.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#263

Post by matheusmoreira »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #146
elzbardico wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brazilian government created an instant payment system that doesn't depend on payment processors. You can send money to anyone in seconds using their tax id number or their phone numbers, it clears in seconds. It is named PIX. All banks implemented it, so, no matter what is your bank you're able to do payments from your smartphone using your banks app. It is so popular and easy to use that even street merchants a…

How do they deal with fraud/theft?

Very badly. It is now extremely common for criminals to force people to log into the bank app and transfer out all liquid assets, no doubt to bank accounts created with stolen identities. What happens after? I'm not sure. I assume the victim has to prove that a crime occurred in order to reverse the transactions.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#265

Post by colejohnson66 »

ars wrote: post #179
Isinlor wrote: post #8

I would want to see regulations where banks are explicitly forbidden from blocking legal transactions. If it's legal then banks should have no choice but to handle it.

> I would want to see regulations where banks are explicitly forbidden from blocking legal transactions. I want the same thing from web service providers - if the content is legal then Amazon, etc. should not be permitted to refuse service. Twitter should not be permitted to have its own terms and conditions, rather they should follow the law - it's either illegal, and ban the person, or it's legal and they must leav…

That literally flies in the face of the first amendment. Forcing a website to host something they don’t like is compelled speech. They’re private corporations and can do what they want. The courts are very clear on that. If you want them to be forced to host everyone, you nationalize them into a utility.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#266

Post by matheusmoreira »

elzbardico wrote: post #200
matheusmoreira wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors Sounds like you're saying we need crypto. Decentralized banks? That's exactly the sort of crazy idea that's just not gonna happen outside of crypto. > Speaking of credit card companies: why do they exist?? They provide a useful service. They pay for stuff for you, then you pay them back later. This is great b…

If it only we have some kind of country-wide entity that was run by the people through elections and that could create a centralized payment system with open access to everyone.... But no! The state! oh the horror! Cant have state-run things!!!!

Governments the world over are surveiling you without your consent right now. How could you possibly trust them? Centralized economic systems are nothing but yet another state surveillance apparatus. People think it is normal for the state to demand complete identification data on every person businesses transact with. It sacrifices our privacy yet fails to prevent crime. No amount of crime justifies this.

We need decentralized currencies with strong privacy guarantees. There must be so many nodes in operation no single government on earth has any hope of stopping the processing of transactions. Currencies must exist independently of governments, especially their monetary policies. It must be mathematically impossible for them to trace anything. Only then will people be free.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#267

Post by matheusmoreira »

franga2000 wrote: post #142
matheusmoreira wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors Sounds like you're saying we need crypto. Decentralized banks? That's exactly the sort of crazy idea that's just not gonna happen outside of crypto. > Speaking of credit card companies: why do they exist?? They provide a useful service. They pay for stuff for you, then you pay them back later. This is great b…

> decentralization => crypto Banks already are a decentralized system, just not a very good one. I can send a SEPA transfer from any EU account to any other EU account no matter which banks they are with and there isn't a "SCT processing company" that handles that for me, the banks communicate with each other - the system is decentralized. But that transaction takes up to a day for pretty much no reason, so we use pa…

Banks are centralized enough to be targets for government intervention. There simply aren't enough nodes in this supposedly decentralized system for the failure of a single node to not matter.

> For debit card transactions they don't provide any benefit

Agree.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#268

Post by matheusmoreira »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #63
matheusmoreira wrote: post #19

What do you mean, "are becoming"? They have always been. If the payment processors don't want to be associated with a service, they'll refuse to handle payments and then there's simply no way for the service providers to get paid. See wikileaks and other "problematic" sites. Advertisers are also regulators. I've seen sites start heavily censoring themselves because someone complained to Google and they pulled the ads…

And they should, for their own protection; they will be taken down hard if they are found to be complicit in financing things like terrorism and child pornography. When it comes to the recent events around Pornhub and Onlyfans, the payment processors erred on the side of caution, because those two customers of theirs couldn't for definite guarantee that nothing shady was going on on their websites.

> they will be taken down hard if they are found to be complicit

How can the provider of vital infrastructure be complicit in anything? Is the engineer who designed and built a bridge complicit when a criminal crosses it?

They should be considered neutral. Just like information carriers are considered neutral. Not liable for what goes on inside their networks. Searching for and punishing anyone violating any law is up to the authorities and they must do that without violating everyone else's privacy no matter how frustrating it must be for them.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#269

Post by School-Cotton »

doublescoop wrote: post #181
some_random wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. There is not a single state where cannabis is legal, there are only states that have decided they won't enforce federal law.

No states enforce federal laws. The federal government does that. If there is no state law criminalizing cannabis use there it's legal in that state.

No, the feds refusing to prosecute doesn’t make it legal. Federal crimes are crimes everywhere, even in states that don’t have the same crime on their statute books.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#270

Post by Dylan16807 »

gamacodre wrote: post #259
Dylan16807 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should still have access to basic banking services, as a utility. Would you think it's okay if their water company tried to cut them off?

I was responding to a comment about making money from ads, but a similar line of thought works for banking services, I think. Suppose that your use of the water service was creating public lashback against the water utility for "supporting" your business. A loud minority is pestering the water board members and complaining that what you're doing ought to be illegal even if it isn't strictly yet. Some are pressuring o…

> I was responding to a comment about making money from ads, but a similar line of thought works for banking services, I think.

It depends on what level the ads are being cut. But sure, that can be different.

> As far as what's "right"... Damn if I know.

I stand pretty firmly on "everyone deserves access to utilities".

Maybe with a throttle at a certain level if they're abusing the utility itself.

So charging more to big water users is usually fine, refusing to deal at all is rarely fine.

The point at which someone is acting so badly they need to be removed from utilities, where fines aren't even enough, is the point where they should be going to prison. And then they should have access restored upon release.

And sending money in a simple electronic way should be a utility in the US.

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