Credit card companies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are joining forces to identify those who used credit cards to pay for child porn.
The effort’s organizers, Ernie Allen, head of the NECMC, and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, say they hope to eliminate so-called “commercial child porn” by 2008, the Agape Press reported.
Allen said the program targets those who purchase $29 per month subscriptions to child porn sites using their credit cards. The point of the effort is to make child porn unprofitable by making it harder for pedophiles to pay for it.
With the help of Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, as well as Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup and PayPal, the group hopes to identify and block those who use credit cards to buy child porn.
Though MasterCard and American Express say they won’t reveal customer identities unless they are forced to do so in court.
