Cuomo
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - Agreements with three major Internet Service Providers will help fight child pornography, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.
Cuomo called the agreements reached with Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint "landmark." He says they will block access to child porn from two significant sources -- an online service not associated with websites known as "Newsgroups" and any child porn site on any of the three providers' servers.
"The pervasiveness of child pornography on the Internet is horrific and it needs to be stopped," Cuomo said.
"We are attacking this problem by working with Internet Service Providers to ensure they do not play host to this immoral business. I commend the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry."
Cuomo said an investigation conducted by his office uncovered 88 different Newsgroups that contained 11,390 sexually explicit photographs of children, some of which depicted rape and bestiality.
Verizon has 8.2 million subscribers, and Time Warner Cable's Road Runner has 7.9 million, while Sprint is one of the nation's largest wireless providers. The agreements come on the heels of agreements with social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace.
As part of the agreement, the three companies will implement new systems that will allow them to respond quicker to child porn complaints and pay a total of $1.125 million to help the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"We are committed to ensuring our users are not exposed to the horror that is child pornography," Verizon Deputy General Counsel Tom Dailey said.
"By shutting down offending Newsgroups and contributing to funds that will combat child pornography online, we are working to remove this content permanently."
From Legal Newsline: Reach John O'Brien via e-mail at john@legalnewsline.com.