Mastercard's VP Linda Kirkpatrick was the only witness at that hearing who testified with any semblance of being not 100% pro-SOPA at that hearing.
> As noted yesterday, Visa is actually officially against these bills, which makes this one at least somewhat interesting, because the story we'd been hearing was that MasterCard was in favor of them. But Kirkpatrick's testimony is actually kind of surprising. While we expected it to be very pro-SOPA... it turns out that she's very concerned about the massive compliance and liability costs of the bill. Kirkpatrick explains how MasterCard works, and goes to great lengths to say it's against the company's policy to use its cards for any transactions that break the law. And it already has an existing anti-piracy policy, which allows law enforcement and rights holders to bring such infringement using its cards to the company's attention. It then explains its investigation and notification policy. This is all very interesting... and basically makes an anti-SOPA point: given that MasterCard already does this, why does it need SOPA?
Mastercard's VP Linda Kirkpatrick was the only witness at that hearing who testified with any semblance of being not 100% pro-SOPA at that hearing.
> As noted yesterday, Visa is actually officially against these bills, which makes this one at least somewhat interesting, because the story we'd been hearing was that MasterCard was in favor of them. But Kirkpatrick's testimony is actually kind of surprising. While we expected it to be very pro-SOPA... it turns out that she's very concerned about the massive compliance and liability costs of the bill. Kirkpatrick explains how MasterCard works, and goes to great lengths to say it's against the company's policy to use its cards for any transactions that break the law. And it already has an existing anti-piracy policy, which allows law enforcement and rights holders to bring such infringement using its cards to the company's attention. It then explains its investigation and notification policy. This is all very interesting... and basically makes an anti-SOPA point: given that MasterCard already does this, why does it need SOPA?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111116/00035716786/look-t...