If you have been disillusioned by the corporate scandals of the past year, I have a ray of hope for you. Visa and MasterCard, epitomes of the large corporation, are major players in the fight to stop child pornography.
In the past year, Visa and MasterCard have set up expensive monitoring programs. The programs report suspicious sites on the Web to international police forces that enforce child pornography laws.
In addition, many institutions associated with Visa and MasterCard must register "high-risk merchants" who process adult content. Those who don't register risk losing their connection to Visa or MasterCard.
What a fine example of corporate responsibility this is. And they aren't even tooting their own horns, which makes the whole thing that much better.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, use of credit cards on child pornography sites is relatively new. Until recently, pedophiles traded objects of their sick interests among themselves. Now, it seems the industry is big enough for child pornography sites to charge subscription fees.
Since pedophiles engage in such subversive, underworld habits, it is relatively hard to catch them. The Web sites are especially hard to track because many of them work under the guise of more innocent endeavors. If a child pornography Web site can operate with the appearance of being everyday porn, there is only so much law enforcement can do about it.
When a corporation like Visa or MasterCard is willing to get involved, the options for fighting child pornographers broaden. These corporations are on the inside track. They do not need probable cause or a court order from a judge to investigate how people spend their money.
They know how a person uses his or her credit card the moment the person uses it. And they know which companies are offering credit card transactions. Those companies have to submit information to Visa and MasterCard in order to get their money.
That is how they are tracking child pornographers. Instead of tracking pedophiles who frequent the sites, the system tracks child pornographers who run the sites. Visa estimates that 80 percent of the 400 child pornography sites it has identified have been shut down or lost their Visa privileges.
As a result, pedophiles report an increased difficulty in finding Web sites that cater to their desires. While it is nice to know pedophiles are having a hard time engaging in their pleasures, the image of such people complaining about a shortage of children in perverted sexual situations is sickening.
What they should be doing is weeping in their bathtubs with shame and disgust at themselves - better yet, sitting on a psychiatrist's couch.
This is what a corporation can accomplish when it has an interest in bettering the world rather than lining its proverbial pockets. After Enron, Worldcom and all the rest of them, reading about Visa's and MasterCard's willingness to help law enforcement track child pornographers is refreshing news, even if the situation is depressing.
From a perspective of pure capitalism, these companies should be more interested in keeping child pornographers in business. Pedophiles spend a lot of money for their habits. And it's money with a future too, because pedophiles will keep going back and keep paying.
Yet Visa and MasterCard are unwilling to let their product be used for illegal purposes, despite their financial interests. After the past year, when every corporate executive seemed to be a criminal, a corporation acting so selflessly returns a tiny bit of one's faith in the system.
Kym Levesque is a journalism junior. Reach her at kymberly.levesque@asu.edu.
