“The pervasiveness of child pornography on the Internet is horrific and it needs to be stopped,” said the Attorney General.  “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.”

An undercover investigation by the Attorney General’s office uncovered a major source of online child pornography known as “Newsgroups,” an online service not associated with websites.  The Newsgroups act as online public bulletin boards where users can upload and download files.  Users access Newsgroups through their Internet Service Providers.  As part of the agreements, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint will for the first time completely block access to all child porn Newsgroups.

The Attorney General’s investigation reviewed millions of pictures over several months, uncovering 88 different Newsgroups that contained a total of 11,390 sexually lewd photos featuring prepubescent children, and in some cases photos of children being raped and sexual activity involving animals. Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint provided their subscribers with access to many of these Newsgroups.

In addition to eliminating the Newsgroups, the ISPs have also agreed to purge their servers of all child pornography websites identified by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (“NCMEC”).  NCMEC regularly reviews and updates its registry of these illegal sites to ensure the list reflects the current presence of such websites on the Internet. 

Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint, as part of the agreements with Cuomo, will implement a new system to rapidly respond to user complaints about child pornography.  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.  

Attorney General Cuomo said, “I applaud Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint for working with my office to address this growing problem.  These companies are leading the industry and instituting new and innovative ways to stop their service from being used by people looking to distribute and access child pornography.  I call on all Internet Service Providers to follow their example and help deter the spread of online child porn.”

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Chief Executive Officer Ernie Allen said, “This is a major step forward in the fight against child pornography.  Attorney General Cuomo has developed a new and effective system that cuts online child porn off at the source, and stops it from spreading across the Internet.  I applaud the Attorney General for making the protection of children a priority for his office.”

Verizon and Time Warner Cable are two of the five largest Internet Service Providers in the world.  Verizon has 8.2 million subscribers and Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner has 7.9 million.  Sprint is one of the three largest wireless companies in the United States.  The Attorney General’s investigation into Internet Service Providers allowing child pornography to be distributed online remains ongoing.

Protecting children from online predators has been a priority for Attorney General Cuomo.  In May 2007, Cuomo worked with law enforcement authorities to investigate sex offenders who had been found on MySpace, a popular social networking site.  In October 2007, Cuomo and the popular online community Facebook announced a new model to enforce safeguards aimed at protecting its network members, especially children and adolescents, from sexual predators, obscene content, and harassment.  In January 2008, Attorney General Cuomo sponsored the nation’s most comprehensive legislation to dramatically enhance protections for New Yorkers, especially children, from sexual predators on the Internet.  The comprehensive Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP), was passed unanimously by the New York State Assembly and Senate, and was signed into law by Governor Paterson in May 2008.  The legislation restricts certain sex offenders’ use of the Internet and updates Megan’s Law for the Internet age.

Update:

In July 2008, AT&T and AOL announced that they will also eliminate access to Internet newsgroups where child pornography is posted.  Further, the the companies pledged to purge their servers of web sites that contain child porn.

Update:

On July 29, 2008, the Attorney General announced that internet service providers Comcast, NetZero, Juno and Bluelight all agreed to remove any child pronography websites from their servers and and refuse access to newsgroups that supply the images.

Update:

On August 6, 2008, it was announced that Cablevision, Long Island's largest internet service provider, has joined the growing list of internet service providers that are blocking access to web sites containing child pornography and refusing access to child porn newsgroups.

Update:

On August 19, 2008, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that Frontier/Citizens Net, LocalNet, Wild Blue, Onestream and WINC communications have now signed agreements with his office to block access to child pornography.