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3 Internet Services To Block Access To Child Porn Sites

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The Washington Post

Published: June 11, 2008

WASHINGTON - Three of the nation's major Internet service providers have agreed to block customer access to newsgroups and Web sites that offer child pornography, according to an agreement announced Tuesday by the New York attorney general's office.

The agreements, which were hailed by child-welfare advocates as a significant step, push the service providers to take a more active role in monitoring what takes place over their lines.

But by forcing providers to act as censors, the agreements may also violate the First Amendment, free-speech advocates said.

Under the deals with Sprint Nextel, Verizon Communications and Time Warner Cable, which are expected to hold nationwide, the companies agreed to shut off access to newsgroups thought to traffic in child pornography and to remove from their servers any Web sites offering such images.

The targeted sites will be based on a list compiled by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

"When it comes to child pornography, there is no excuse this office will tolerate," Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said during a news conference to announce the agreements.

The agreements arise from an eight-month child pornography probe in which the New York investigators discovered illicit pictures on the Internet and then, posing as customers, filed complaints with the service providers involved. Internet providers are supposed to review each complaint and then, if warranted, pass the information to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

In the long-standing effort to hinder the transmission of child pornography over the Internet, the decision to focus on service providers, rather than on the recipients of the images, is a relatively new and somewhat controversial tactic.

But John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, said that the notion of a government agency forcing a service provider to block content, especially without court oversight, raises questions of censorship.

He said that in the past when service providers have tried to block offensive Web sites, they have erred and blocked many innocent ones as well. In one Pennsylvania case, he said, an attempt to block 400 illicit sites extended to more than 1 million unrelated sites.

The New York probe also turned up the popularity of newsgroups, essentially electronic bulletin boards on the Internet, among pedophiles.

The investigation found 88 newsgroups involving 11,390 sexual photos featuring prepubescent children. Among them were photos of children being raped and sexual activity involving animals, according to the attorney general's office.

The three companies will also collectively pay $1.125 million to fund additional efforts by the attorney general's office and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to remove child pornography from the Internet.

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