[governance] Example of Corporate Internet Authoritarianism -

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Carlton Samuels writes:

  I sympathize with Bill's comments here. Oftentimes the restrictions to online commercial transactions are based on the merchant's assessment of risk from a fraudulent transaction. I became aware of this issue because I live in Jamaica and some merchants make Jamaica a high-risk operational area, effectively locking me out of the transactional relationship.



This is absolutely correct.
In the late nineties, I ran an online business selling mobile telephones and mobile telephone accessories. The Web site accepted credit cards, and our policy was to ship worldwide. After a while, it became apparent that an alarmingly higher proportion of credit card fraud emanated from specific countries. Thankfully some of these fraudulous attempts were caught on time by our extended checking, but we needed to ask upon our insurance for several shipments which disappeared and were never paid for. Sadly, filing (remotely) with the local police (and I've got to tell you how much time that took) never yielded any response.
I can therefore understand that for some corporations, it might not make sense to do business with end users in some countries. It is, from my experience, a business reason.

Warmest regards,

Olivier

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
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