Three Major ISPs Ban Access To Child Pornography Newsgroups

Cable

Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable will shut down access to newsgroups that traffic in child pornography. Such activity is most prolific on Usenet--a forefather of today's Internet"-but has plenty of hosts on the modern World Wide Web as well.

According to Reuters, the pact resulted from an investigation by Cuomo's office, in which undercover agents posed as subscribers and complained to the ISPs about the ease of finding child pornography online. Such proliferation would be in violation of customer-service agreements that discourage such activity; some providers explicitly inform customers that they risk loss of service if they transmit or disseminate sexually exploitative images of children.

Reportedly, the ISPs largely ignored these complaints and the Attorney General's office stepped in, threatening to charge the companies with fraud and deceptive business practices. The companies then agreed to address the child pornography problem.

Other ISPs are expected to sign onto the agreement, which will be formally announced later Tuesday.

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Cuomo has been actively involved in children's rights regarding the Internet. Last October he and Facebook created a new model to enforce safeguards aimed at protecting network members, especially children and adolescents, from sexual predators, obscene content and harassment.