Long ago, adult webmasters had it pretty damned easy.

Okay. Make that, comparatively easy. Forget all those fairy tales about poor peasants that became rich kings overnight. Those are myths. The first-born adult webmasters may have been early birds but they still had to work like hell to make a profit. One strike against the porn webmasters of old was the difficulty in finding lending banks, willing to open merchant accounts for online payments. For one thing, a merchant account costs money. Lots of money. Second, it’s difficult to find a bank that wants to deal with a pornographer. Third, the concept of a surfer, buying a membership, to access a place that only exists in cyberspace, was just silly in the eyes of bankers.

"Listen up newbies and veterans! If you were uninformed, you're not anymore. I don't know how I can make this any clearer. If you're using PayPal as a payment processor, stop."

Our smutty forefathers and mothers sallied forth. They believed in the commercial power of the Internet. They knew that there were millions of adults, eager to see pictures of people fucking and they knew those millions would pay for the privilege. They were positive that as long as they offered fast, easy payment methods, the millions would come and the dollars would follow. They realized that early Internet travelers weren’t going to wait for money orders or snail-mailed checks to clear. They had to get the money while their potential subscriber’s dicks were hard.

Meanwhile, there were other visionaries that foresaw saw the promise of online payment processing. One of those visionaries was PayPal. Granted, there were other ‘e-payment’ companies in the beginning. But those others fell to the ravages of the dot com bust and bad management. PayPal was the survivor. They offered buyers and sellers a way to hook up over the Internet. PayPal allowed a user to load an online balance with funds. In turn, PayPal gave sellers the software and services need to receive money over the web. All PayPal wanted was a small fee per seller transaction.

At one time, PayPal was the answer for the individual adult webmaster, wishing to open a paysite or service. It was discreet. It was cost-effective and surfers trusted it. Perverts everywhere gobbled up gigs and gigs of xxx content, courtesy of PayPal. The partnership of porn and PayPal was successful but on the down-low. The fact is that PayPal used to have a pretty vague set of rules regarding sexual content. Adult webmasters used PayPal’s services because PayPal let them. The company’s old terms of service didn’t seem to apply because there was no enforcement of those terms. We put PayPal buttons on our websites and PayPal looked the other way.

Then one day, the fairy tale ended. E-Bay bought PayPal and the dream was over. The world’s largest online auction put the kibosh on selling porn via PayPal payments. Oh sure, one could sell a few sexy softcore items through E-Bay’s Mature section, but paysite subscriptions were out. Adult content sales were out. Offsite transactions for sexual stuff were out. Today, if you want to sell adult products via PayPal, you’re limited to collector issues of Playboy and Hustler and novelty t-shirts. What’s worse, you can only sell these namby-pamby items on E-Bay and only behind E-Bay’s adult gateway. In truth, even those mentioned items are probably in violation of PayPal’s Mature Audiences Policy. Don’t believe me? Read the policy for yourself:

Mature Audiences Policy

You may not use PayPal in the purchase or sale of, or receipt of donations for, any obscene or sexually oriented goods or services.

In determining what goods or services are prohibited under the Mature Audiences Policy, PayPal will consider some or all of the following factors:

Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct.

Representations or descriptions of intercourse, masturbation, excretory functions, or lewd exhibition of the genitals.

Dominant theme of the material or website.

Literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Safety and protection of its customers, both buyers and sellers.

Medical or educational usage of the product or service.

Any sexually oriented goods or services involving minors, or made to appear to involve minors, will automatically be treated as violations of the Mature Audiences Policy.

PayPal will not include sexual preferences or viewpoints as a factor in determining what goods or services are prohibited under the Mature Audiences Policy.

Listen up newbies and veterans! If you were uninformed, you’re not anymore. I don’t know how I can make this any clearer. If you’re using PayPal as a payment processor, stop. If you think that you can keep getting away with it just because you have so far, you’re fooling yourselves. When PayPal catches you (and they will) they will hold your funds and hag you out to dry. For your own sake, find a payment alternative immediately. For a complete listing of adult-friendly processors, IPSPs and merchant account services, visit Cozy Frog’s Billing Listings.

Get off the PayPal!