Internet porn – Credit card firms must cut porn link

NO money, no porn.

It's as simple as that, according to UCC professor Max Taylor, the international paedophile expert who has called on global credit card companies to cease funding the grossly immoral trade in paid internet pornography.

As evidenced by the Bank of Ireland's dramatic decision to terminate its multi-million euro backing for a British pornography distribution company, people power can influence morality in business.

Just how important it is for companies to have a clearly defined ethical policy was amply demonstrated by the successful protest against the bank's involvement in the pornography industry as first revealed in this newspaper by Business Correspondent Conor Keane.

Initiating a personal campaign, Irene Feighan, editor of our Feelgood publication, wrote that as a long-standing customer of the Bank of Ireland, she felt she had no choice but to close her account and switch to a more ethical bank. In support, the issue was taken up by the Irish Women's Council and the Labour Party and the bank was forced to do a U-turn.

It is not good enough for firms to plead innocence by saying they are detached or disinterested on grounds that they do not moralise. Such was the Bank of Ireland's initial response to our exposé that it was to be the main backer of the first porn company planning a floatation on the London Stock Exchange.

Shamed into withdrawing financial support for the move, the bank conceded it would "review its polices" because of the furore over the deal.

Overnight, it withdrew its backing of the €37 million floatation by the porn distribution group Remnant Media. Whether or not it foresaw a customer backlash, the bank's implicit admission that making money through pornography is morally reprehensible has to be acknowledged.

Parents are right to be alarmed over the insidious threat posed to children by the sickening spread of pornographic images on the internet. They also have a right not to support firms which have no ethical policies.

This goes to the heart of Prof Taylor's argument that global trafficking in paid pornography could be virtually wiped out if credit card operators dropped the processing of billions of euro being paid for porn on the internet.

As director of the UCC-based COPINE unit, he plays a major role in helping international police put the spotlight on child pornographers around the world.

Doubtless, credit card companies will claim it is legal and above-board to process customer accounts. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is unacceptable for any firm to perform a Pontius Pilate where the transmission of pornography is concerned. In now way can commercial involvement in this dirty game under the guise of respectability be justified.

As Prof Taylor succinctly puts it "if there was no money to be made, then most of the companies selling porn on the internet would simply go away".

His point is borne out by the financial success of corporations involved in the multi-billion euro porn trade. Aware of the stigma attached to this sordid business, they operate anonymously, concealing their involvement as they put profit and greed before fundamental principles of morality.

Credit card companies have a moral responsibility to stop doing business with internet purveyors of sexual depravity.

There can be no more compelling argument for stopping this perverse trade, than the chilling revelation by Swedish MEP Marianne Eriksson that on any one of 66 internet sites a child can be bought by credit card.