(ICMEC). The Coalition is made up of almost two dozen major banks and credit-card companies that are implementing a zero-tolerance policy in dealing with pornographers posing as legitimate businesses, and thus far, the initiative has been successful.
"Financial industry leaders which represent 87 percent of the U.S. payments industry -- measured in dollars running through the system -- have signed on," Ernie Allen, of Missingkids.com, recently reported on Capitol Hill.
According to Mark McCarthy, a spokesperson for Visa, this is the credit-card company's way of being proactive in the fight against child porn.
"In August of [2006], our search firm examined over 11 million Internet sites a day and found two child pornography sites that accepted Visa cards," McCarthy explained. "Of course that's two too many. Since the beginning of the year, nine such sites have been identified in the Visa system, and all of those sites were quickly expelled from our system."
Janice Crouse, senior fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, told Family News In Focus that she believes the attempt to cut off money to child-porn sites is an effort that could save hundreds, even thousands, of children's lives.
Recently joining the Coalition were Chase Paymentech Solutions, Global Payments, Inc., HSBC - North America, and Washington Mutual. Other members include America Online, American Express Company, Authorize.Net, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citigroup, Discover Financial Services LLC, e-gold, First Data Corporation, First National Bank of Omaha, Google, MasterCard, Microsoft, North American Bancard, Nova Information Systems, PayPal, First PREMIER Bank/PREMIER Bankcard, Standard Chartered Bank, Visa, Wells Fargo, and Yahoo! Inc.
The bulk of this article, printed with permission, appears in the January 2007 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.
