New York threatens Comcast over child pornography
By
Iain Thomson
24 July 2008 04:17PM
Tags:
york | threatens | comcast | child | pornography
The Attorney General of New York State Andrew Cuomo is threatening Comcast with legal action unless it signs up to a pledge to ban its customers from viewing child pornography..
In a strongly worded letter Cuomo points out that major ISPs have already signed up to remove illegal content from sites and news groups that are listed as containing child pornography and that it is unacceptable for Comcast, the nations second biggest ISP not to do the same.
“Comcast’s unwillingness to sign the code of conduct and purge its system of pornography puts Comcast at the back of the pack in the race to fight this scourge, and would likely be surprising to Comcast’s millions of customers across the country,” he said.
“Time is of the essence here, as every day without these measures is another day that this illegal material is sluicing through the internet. I am asking you to take another hard look at the agreement that the other five companies have signed and tell me in the next five days whether you will commit to this code.”
However, some are now questioning Cuomo’s stance, especially Usenet users. After Time Warner signed up to his deal the company shut down all access the Usenet because 88 of the thousands of groups carried illegal material, and other ISPs have also blocked large sections of the venerable bulletin board system.
Comcast has already to a nationwide code of conduct on child pornography and so it is hard to see what reaching a separate deal with Cuomo would accomplish.
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