What law is being violated? Payment processors, currently, have the right to do, or not do, business with anyone, for any reason, as long as it doesn't involve a protected class. And I would actually be fine with that, if they weren't a monopoly. Since they ARE a monopoly, they should be regulated as such, "as a utility" in common language, so that their ability to deny customers is restricted to matters of illegality or credit-worthiness. But they are not currently so-regulated, which means there's no cause. You could maaaybe make a case for tortious interference on Collective Shout's part, interfering with the "contract" users have with Itch, Itch has with Visa, or both. But that would be quite a stretch, and it wouldn't do anything to Visa, just Collective Shout, which would be nice, but mostly a waste of time.
This deserves repetition for emphasis: Nothing Visa is doing here is illegal. It SHOULD be, but it isn't. That's the problem. Imagine if your fucking water or electric or gas could just be shut off because the companies didn't like the porn you jacked off to. Utilities are in special class for a reason.
Viewing post in Day 3: Holding Pattern. "Allowing" sales again. comments
Okay, this is from Google AI, so take this with a grain of salt, but according to what I've read a company does not have to be in violation of any specific law to be targeted with a class action lawsuit. The minimum standard is that a company must be engaged in practices that have harmed a large number of people.
As well, it is not a prerequisite that the lawsuit be filed on behalf of a protected class unless discrimination is being alleged.
The key prerequisites regardless of protected class status are:
Numerosity: There must be a sufficient number of people affected to make individual lawsuits impractical.
Commonality: The class members must share common legal or factual claims that arise from the same event or course of conduct.
Typicality: The claims of the lead plaintiff (the person who initiates the lawsuit) must be typical of the claims of the rest of the class.
Adequacy of Representation: The lead plaintiff and their attorneys must be capable of fairly and adequately protecting the interests of the entire class.
As I said before, I'd say these actions taken by payment processors easily fit these criteria.
Oh sure, technically speaking especially in the US you can sue anyone for anything. I can sue you right now cause I think your username is dumb (I don't, just an example). But that doesn't say anything to the chances it actually going anywhere. Are there a lot of people that have been harmed? Sure. And does there have to be a literal law that's broken, no. But there has to be a generally understood legal precedent.
For example if Flubber was real, and released, and it turns out exposure to it gradually causes severe mental illness, there's no literal law against that. It's a new circumstance. But there are many, many precedents against poisoning people via exposure to something. Again, neither of us are even close to lawyers, but I don't think there's any precedent to build a case on here. Visa, like most businesses in general, is free to do, or not business with whoever they like, for whatever reason, at whatever time, subject only to the clauses in their own contract. The only exception to this is, again, if they're engaging in discrimination in the range of a protected class (sex, sexuality, race etc). You can SUCCESSFULLY someone in a class action for poisoning you because poisoning is illegal, and has been for a very long time. Visa's actions have caused a great deal of financial harm to a large number of people, but unfortunately I don't think they're a breach of either their contract with Itch or generally established law. A landlord kicking you out of your rented physical storefront also does massive financial damage to you, but you can't successfully sue him as long as he's abiding by relevant eviction law and the lease that was signed.
Believe me, there's a class of lawyers that flock to any situation where a class action actually has even the slightest possibility of going somewhere. They'd be all over this if that was the case here.
I appreciate the sentiment though. I just don't think there's anything to go on there. If there was, the CCC would have been sued ages ago, this has been going on for a very, very long time. And they HAVE been sued for many other things, but mostly of the "being a monopoly and crushing competitors, overcharging people etc variety".