Fighting Child Porn

In a sweeping initiative announced Thurs, cable operators will help authorities fight child pornography under a new agreement between the NCTA, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Assn of Attorneys General. Under the plan, all cable ops represented on the NCTA’s board have signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to use NCMEC’s list of active child-porn Web sites to ensure that no such site is hosted on servers owned or controlled by those cable ops. The ops have also agreed to report any such instances and, where appropriate, revise their policies to prevent other potential child-porn sources such as newsgroups. NCTA pres/CEO Kyle McSlarrow said cable ops signing the MOU are "reaffirming their strong commitment to online safety and Internet literacy for all American families." NAAG President Patrick Lynch said it’s the first time NCMEC has been able to strike such a deal with, effectively, an entire industry. Participating cable ops include: Comcast, Cox, Charter, Cablevision, Bright House, Suddenlink, Mediacom, Insight, Bresnan, Midcontinent, Broadstripe, GCI, Harron, US Cable Corp, BendBroadband, Eagle Communications and Sjoberg’s, Inc. Time Warner Cable had already signed the MOU. FCC comsr Robert McDowell, Sen Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep Fred Upton (R-MI) are among several officials praising the cable industry’s participation.