US ISPs give up resistance to block child porn sites
Internet service providers Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to bulletin boards and web sites across the US that disseminate such content.
By PTI |
NEW YORK: In a major step to curtail access to online child pornography,Internet service providers Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to bulletin boards and web sites across the US that disseminate such content, a step resisted by the industry for years.
The move is part of a groundbreaking agreement with New York attorney general Andrew M Cuomo that will be formally announced shortly.
Many in the industry have previously resisted similar efforts, saying they could not be responsible for content online, given the decentralised and largely unmonitored nature of the Internet.
The agreements, the New York Times said today, will affect customers not just in New York but throughout the country. Verizon and Time Warner Cable are two of the nation's five largest service providers, with roughly 16 million customers between them.
Negotiations are continuing with other service providers, Cuomo was quoted as saying.
The companies have agreed to shut down access to newsgroups that traffic in pornographic images of children on one of the oldest outposts of the Internet, known as Usenet, the paper said.
Usenet began nearly 30 years ago and was one of the earliest ways to swap information online, but as the World Wide Web blossomed, Usenet was largely supplanted by it, becoming a favoured back alley for those who traffic in illicit material.
The providers will also cut off access to Web sites that traffic in child pornography.
The move is part of a groundbreaking agreement with New York attorney general Andrew M Cuomo that will be formally announced shortly.
Many in the industry have previously resisted similar efforts, saying they could not be responsible for content online, given the decentralised and largely unmonitored nature of the Internet.
The agreements, the New York Times said today, will affect customers not just in New York but throughout the country. Verizon and Time Warner Cable are two of the nation's five largest service providers, with roughly 16 million customers between them.
Negotiations are continuing with other service providers, Cuomo was quoted as saying.
The companies have agreed to shut down access to newsgroups that traffic in pornographic images of children on one of the oldest outposts of the Internet, known as Usenet, the paper said.
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Usenet began nearly 30 years ago and was one of the earliest ways to swap information online, but as the World Wide Web blossomed, Usenet was largely supplanted by it, becoming a favoured back alley for those who traffic in illicit material.
The providers will also cut off access to Web sites that traffic in child pornography.
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