This is a fascinating “open letter” from a blogger who covers the porn industry, asking Google to embrace his industry, especially given its dependance on payment systems just like the one Google is working on. The conclusions are quite interesting.
Banking is a perennial thorn in the side of even the largest and most successful adult websites. All adult companies are overcharged by merchant banks poorly equipped to deal with transactions they consider to be ‘high-risk’.
Before PayPal withdrew from offering billing services to adult companies (around the time they were acquired by eBay), they were the preferred customer choice for the websites that offered them as a payment option.
It’s hard to justify PayPal’s withdrawl on ‘moral’ grounds given the volume of pornography sold via eBay.
Conclusion: Google is already in the porn business and it would be damaging to withdraw.
Conclusion: PayPal have banned ‘high-risk’ transactions due to a lack of technical expertise. Google can satisfy a waiting billion dollar market by catering to adult transactions.
Conclusion: Taking adult transactions will give Google the ‘adult edge’ that VHS used to overtake Betamax. PayPal’s neglect is Google’s opportunity.
Update: The ever inquisitive Gary finds that Google already owns “GooglePorn.com” and some others..
fascinating indeed. Porn is the media gorilla no one ever wants to talk about.
For instance, Fleshbot is Nick Denton’s most popular Gawker site, yet it barely gets mentioned in the articles I read about Gawker Media.
the Gary link is broken