Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Current mood: discouraged

Ashley Renee phoned and told me that CCBill (her billing company) appears to be flinging itself into a content clean-up project.

They contacted her about her website several times in the past week with various removal requests - made her unlink BondageDirectory, then
BondageGirls, then made her take a bunch of photosets and clips off her site.

Ashley said she asked a staffer by phone “why am I being targeted right now?” and the staffer claimed that CCBill has been told by their merchant bank to clean things up (paraphrasing here). The staffer said maybe the reason Ashley was one of the first sites contacted during this cleanup, was because Ashley’s site is near the beginning of the alphabet.

A staffer also related to Ashley that CCBill now has 15 staffers currently working on this project and that spiders were being used to check CCBill client websites to check for “forbidden” words & metatags, and links to “forbidden” sites.

In one of the written notices she got, Ashley was told to remove one set because the man grabs her from behind in a hallway before tying her up. CCBill informed her that the sneaking up from behind looked “non consensual” and therefore was a violation of their “no rape” rule. (?!)

Ashley related to me that CCBill went thumbs-down on most of her two-person sets because they said she looked unhappy in the pictures — “nonconsensual” themes.

A drawing was required pulled, categorized as “extreme violence” because it depicted a damsel in distress approaching a buzz saw. Of course, the damsel was not shown injured or contacting the saw.

Ashley has a big archive of material so she brought out some of her solo-bondage classics to fill up her photo-site again, but it’s very upsetting that a lot of her work is now on hold and can’t be seen.

For curious folks who want to see CCBill’s AUP
(Acceptable Use Policy, aka “What’s Obscene”), string together this URL (myspace futzes it ptherwise) and then scroll down to the big paragraph: .. tiny url period com slash o48cx

–Lorelei

P.S. I emailed all my CCBill members and asked them to switch to one of my other billers. I don’t think I could manage renovating my site to the degree of vanilla-ism that CCBill now expects!

8:03 AM - 9 Comments - 9 Kudos

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Dark Minded Promotions™

Now that is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of. CCBill is probably doing this because of how the Government is still cracking down on adult sites and might be cracking down on the companies used for all the pay sites. Such BullS*it! As long as the person has signed a consent paper (not going into the whole legal wording here) then it should be fine.

Posted by Dark Minded Promotions™ on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 8:57 AM

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John

What a crock of you know what! Like CCBill had no idea what Ashley did when she signed up with them.. I mean come on!!! Sounds like them going with the government and stepping all over the rights of these great performers, withtheir logic of thinking than shouldn’t they also not show anything I don’t know like say King Kong since Faye Ray doesen’t seem to happy when she is kidnapped by Kong or shouldn’t PETA get it taken out of stores since it shows an animal being shot to death? I know dosen’t seem to make sense but those examples just show how stupid CCBill is being.

Posted by John on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 10:36 AM

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Doc - Artist & Writer

Censorship sucks! This is a total load of crap that we, as bondage site masters/contributors, see all too often - but when CCbill gets cold feet to this degree, we’ve got to wonder how far off the end of this ‘free speech’ party is. Granted, we’re still in a period of conservative values overseen by an increasingly ‘Big Brother’-esque government, and hopefully this will pass… but this doesn’t bode well, does it?

Posted by Doc - Artist & Writer on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 11:28 AM

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Jungle Man

UNBEFRIGGINLEIVABLE!!!! John above has some very excellent points using the Kong analogy. This whole war on pornography scare is getting waaay out of hand. What in the world happened to free speech and the ability for consenting age approved ADULTS to see what they choose to see? I find it very strange that people can write internet fiction at a free site that any child can get into, that is hundreds of times more graphic and dangerous not only describing rape but brutal torture and eventually snuff with no repurcussions, but if a simple abduction scenario is shown in a photo at a secured pay site they get threatened by the government or whatever host they use. Meanwhile, the hypocrisy continues as movies like Hostel come out and instantly become “the number 1 movie in America” it’s opening weekend. Once again, don’t get me wrong, I loved Hostel, I just wonder how long it’s going to take before the government is controlling every form of entertainment we love, and every piece of information we get once they have a stranglehold of the internet.

Posted by Jungle Man on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 12:05 PM

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Richard

Lorelei can write volumes on credit card censorship and it’s been going on for quite a few years now.

The thing that concerns me a lot is that the media has been fairly silent about the topic. Even Visa, the primary credit card censor, has been reluctant to publicly say much about their censorship efforts.

It just makes me glad that I didn’t take a major plunge to set up a full paysite. I would have lost a lot of money. I feel especially bad for people, like Ashley and Lorelei, who are trying to earn a living from their sites.

Posted by Richard on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 6:37 PM

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Duct Tape Messiah

And somewhere in Washington D.C., George Bush, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are clinking their brandy glasses together, giggling like 6-year olds.

I think George Carlin said it best, “It’s time to start slapping people.”

Posted by Duct Tape Messiah on Friday, May 26, 2006 at 8:46 AM