Add Visa to the child porn fighters: the credit giant has teamed up with InteCap, a Chicago computer company, to hunt down child porn Websites accepting Visa payments, the Edmonton Sun reported May 29.
"We don't want to see our Visa card used for any unlawful purpose and child pornography is one of the most horrific crimes being perpetrated over the Internet," Visa Canada risk and security director Gord Jamieson told the Sun.
InteCap's software can search about a million Web pages a day and find the child porn sites which take Visa, the paper continued. Visa began targeting child porn in 2002, and with InteCap's help identified over 400 sites taking Visa for child porn payments, the paper said. When a site is identified, InteCap sends the information to authorities, the merchant in question, or even the bank letting the site owner accept Visa, the paper added.
Jamieson told the Sun about 80 percent of those sites have either been shut down or stopped from accepting Visa, with the other 20 percent either returning to the Web under new names or otherwise finding ways to keep from being found. "We're very proud of the steps that we have taken and we think we're playing a major role in trying to fight this type of crime," he told the paper. Once InteCap identifies an illegal site using the Visa name, the information is passed to the police and the merchant, or the bank allowing the site owner to accept Visa is contacted.
