AT&T, AOL Agree With New York To Fight Child Porn

July 10, 2008 12:54 p.m. EST

Rochester, NY (AHN) - New York Attorney Gen. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Thursday that AT&T and AOL have agreed to eliminate child porn news groups from their Internet servers.

Child porn news groups are a major supplier of illegal images.

Agreements with AT&T, the nation's largest Internet Service Provider (ISP), and AOL, the nation's third largest, are in addition to similar agreements with Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner Cable, which Cuomo announced last month.

"These agreements with two of the nation's largest ISPs to eradicate child porn websites from their servers tighten the noose around this despicable trade," Cuomo said in a statement. "Today's agreements with AT&T and AOL send a message to Internet Service Providers across the nation that they can longer drag their feet when it comes to protecting our children and instead must quickly purge child porn from their servers. I call on all ISPs to quickly adopt the reforms in our code of conduct."

To serve that end, Cuomo is enlisting the help of consumers to battle child porn.

He announced his new nystopchildrenporn.com website as a tool for consumers to use to help rid the Internet of images of child pornography.

The website lists Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that have signed agreements with the Attorney General's office to eradicate access to child porn on their servers and tells consumers how to contact ISPs that haven't to demand that they do so.