MasterCard sued: online merchants strike back

One of my longstanding pet peeves has been the high commissions charged by credit card processing companies to online merchants. The claimed rationale has been that online transactions are more likely to be fraudulent, yet it is an underappreciated fact that the cost of that fraud comes entirely out of the merchants' pockets -- the credit card companies pay nothing.

Now one of the big Internet processing companies has filed suit against MasterCard, and many more potential plaintiffs are lining up. VISA will likely also be a target -- the two companies' policies are for all intents and purposes the same.

Posted by David on May 13, 2003 8:42 PM