On Wednesday, adult social networking startup Zivity sent out a notification to their beta testers that they could now buy additional votes if they’re not satisfied with the 5 included with their monthly $10 membership.  Extra votes cost $1 each in packs of 5 and follow their existing payment distribution system where 80% of each vote goes directly to the artists (60 cents to the model and 20 cents to the photographer). 

But what I find so shocking about this new feature is their decision to process payments with PayPal, the bane of every adult webmaster’s existence since they imposed new rules on mature content in 2003.   From their Acceptable Use Policy:

PayPal prohibits transactions for all sexually oriented digital goods. Digital goods include downloaded pictures or videos, subscriptions to websites, or other content delivered through a digital medium.

Clear-cut regarding digital content, but what PayPal doesn’t provide is a straightforward definition of "sexually oriented."  Just about everyone I know in this industry has their own horror story of closed accounts and frozen funds with only a fuzzy idea of what part of the policy they violated.  From my *ahem* personal experience, exposed breasts and suggestive poses are definitely enough to get an account frozen. Adult webmasters fully understand that even in the more tasteful side of this business there is a much higher rate of chargebacks (aka getting caught by the wife), so more rules and higher fees are a fact of life.  But with PayPal’s fickle moral standards, even the most respectable artists are constantly left wondering where they stand.

Zivity’s response to my inquiry on this matter was that they have an excellent relationship with PayPal, but they didn’t offer any other details on communication that they’d had to establish that excellent relationship.  We all know that "Zivity isn’t porn," so let’s hope that message got to PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy team, too.