PayPal Cuts Off Payments To PornHub Models

PayPal Holdings has ended its payment support to PornHub’s models after the adult entertainment site made certain payments without permission.

“Following a review, we have discovered that PornHub has made certain business payments through PayPal without seeking our permission. We have taken action to stop these transactions from occurring,” PayPal said in an email statement, according to Reuters.

Owned by Luxembourg-based MindGeek, PornHub said it was “devastated” by the decision.

“We are all devastated by PayPal’s decision to stop payouts to over a hundred thousand performers who rely on them for their livelihoods,” the company said on its blog.

“Decisions like that of PayPal and other major companies do nothing but harm efforts to end discrimination and stigma towards sex workers. While we still have several payment methods for our models available, we will continue to add more sex worker friendly ones and explore cryptocurrency options in the near future,” a company spokesperson told Vice.

Last month PayPal reported its third-quarter results, which showed continued growth in peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions and customer engagement, with the firm passing a monthly billion-transaction milestone. Revenues were $4.4 billion, a 19 percent increase year on year compared to the $4.3 billion that had been expected by the Street.

“We anticipate ending the year at approximately 304 million active accounts above our stated target of 300 million. Engagement continues to consistently increase, growing by 9 percent to almost 40 transactions per active account,” CEO Dan Schulman said at the time, adding that “mobile is a major driver of our growth with One Touch at 172 million consumers and 13.8 million merchants.”

“Merchants understand the scale we have. They want to be a part of that. We do start to see right now the beginnings of our capabilities of selling as a platform provider and not just a product,” he said.