PayPal sparks furore over limits on "obscene" e-books

[thir]

Now, Paypal making this statement and choice- well, let's just look at that for a minute. Paypal is not a government entity. They don't get their funding from taxes. I believe that they should be allowed to determine what sorts of transactions that they will support. This has nothing to do with rights. If you walked into my nail salon a few years ago, you'd have to abide by my rules, and that is how it should be. Paypal is saying the same thing. Corporations are not democracies. They get to make the rules, and your rights have nothing to do with it. Your rights come into play when you are dealing with police, or other governmental entities. If you don't like how a company is ran, you have the ability (not the right) to spend your money elsewhere.

I've thinking about this...and I believe there are several issues here. One: A business is not a state in the state, and there is a limit to what you can decide. A business has its own rules, but must also abide by the rules of the state. For instance, if you have an amusement park, you cannot decide what the people should wear who are using it, unless it were a safety issue. If you have a nail salon, you cannot say for instance that you will only serve customers if they are over 1.65 m tall, because that would be discriminating.

The second issue is whether or not it is reasonable to take the role of thought police because you have a business. Would it, for instance, be reasonable if a baker demanded that people say a short prayer upon entering his shop? Would it be reasonable if a hair-dresser wanted every customer to swear that they had never voted for the republicans? If you import stuff from China, should you only sell to customers who are pro-life/free-choice, in favour of lower taxes/more taxes, or want more military/less military?

As I see it, and as a general principle, if you sell a service or goods, your are in the busines of selling service or goods, you are not in the busness of converting people to your ideas.

[Thorne]

As I see it, and as a general principle, if you sell a service or goods, your are in the busines of selling service or goods, you are not in the busness of converting people to your ideas.

I would have to say that it depends on whether you are a publicly owned corporation or a privately owned company. A publicly owned company has many more restrictions on it, naturally, since anyone can purchase stock in it. But a privately owned company? I think they have a little more leeway. And of course, any company can refuse to do business with someone if they have a valid reason for doing so. Forcing your morals down someone else's throat, though, is NOT a valid reason.

[lucy]

As I see it, and as a general principle, if you sell a service or goods, your are in the busines of selling service or goods, you are not in the busness of converting people to your ideas.

Now that's just plain wrong. Every privately owned business is free to sell or not sell a service or product, provided they abide the corresponding laws.
I work in the publishing business. The main topic of the journal we produce is human powered mobility. The fact that we don't publish articles about Porsche's newest version of the Cayenne has nothing to do with wanting to convert anyone to our ideas of how traffic in modern cities should work, but it has a lot to do with what we chose to write about.
And in that choice we are (almost) completely free.

Paypal has this choice, too, of course. They also have to take into account that people won't like their decision, which apparently they didn't.

[thir]

Now that's just plain wrong. Every privately owned business is free to sell or not sell a service or product, provided they abide the corresponding laws.

Sure. That is what I said.

I work in the publishing business. The main topic of the journal we produce is human powered mobility. The fact that we don't publish articles about Porsche's newest version of the Cayenne has nothing to do with wanting to convert anyone to our ideas of how traffic in modern cities should work, but it has a lot to do with what we chose to write about.
And in that choice we are (almost) completely free.

You publish magazines, which people can choose to buy or not. But you do not, if I understand you correctly, use your publishing business to try to impose othernon-related ideas on people, for example, if they buy your magazine they must refrain from/adhere to something completely different. As I understand it, you sell your mag with no strings attached.

What pay pal did was to sell a service - how to pay for things to buy - while at the same time trying to use this service to interfere with what you can buy, which is none of their business.