Internet Porn Gets A New Banker
There has been "a little-noticed lawsuit filed Sept. 17 by Internet Billing against First Data.... IBill acts as a middleman between 4,000 small, mostly porn, sites and the banks that are critical to any credit card transaction. In iBill's case, the bank was an obscure unit of First Data, a financial services giant that expects 2004 sales of $10 billion. But apparently fed up with the connection to the controversial business, First Data finally got out of porn on Sept. 15 when its contract with iBill expired, leaving iBill in the lurch.
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..."[B]ankers who handle porn don't advertise the fact. First Data, for instance, managed to avoid any connection with porn until it was revealed in public filings as the company that owned the bank that handled iBill's porn processing. Merrick's name popped up for the first time in iBill's lawsuit against First Data, in which iBill blamed First Data for reneging on a deal to process its credit card accounts until it gets set up at Merrick in November. The court denied iBill's request for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, Sept. 22.
"We have determined that processing payments of the adult entertainment marketplace is inconsistent with our core values," sniffs a First Data spokesman. He adds that the company warned iBill with "multiple notices" that its contract would not be extended after its expiration."
Maybe we'll be spared that big eruption after all.
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