Visa and Mastercard are stopping payments to Pornhub’s parent company

Credit card companies Visa and Mastercard will stop processing payments to MindGeek, Pornhub’s parent company. The two companies discovered after an investigation that there are many illegal images on the porn site.

That the site hosts videos including child abuse and rape is against its own rules, both companies report to The New York Times. The move means that MindGeek will no longer be able to receive money from customers who have a paid subscription via a credit card from either carrier. Other payment traffic to MindGeek, from advertisers for example, also comes to a standstill if it goes via Visa and Mastercard.

The credit card companies are not the first to take action. Payment service PayPal did the same earlier. The credit card companies started the investigation in response to an article in The New York Times earlier this week. As a result, MindGeek has pledged to take measures to reduce the number of child abuse and rape videos. Pornhub claims to have 20 million registered users and 100 billion video views per year.