Internet Companies Aid Child Porn Fight

Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed with New York state officials to block access to child pornography.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday the Internet service providers will block child pornography newsgroups and eliminate the material from their servers.

The companies will also pay $1.125 million to help fund efforts to remove child porn from the Internet.

The agreements follow an undercover investigation of child porn newsgroups and will affect customers nationwide.

Cuomo said in a prepared statement that his investigation of other service providers is continuing.

"Online child pornography represents one of the worst abuses of the Internet," said Time Warner Cable Senior Vice President and Chief Ethics Officer Jeff Zimmerman. He said Time Warner Cable is removing newsgroups from its service.

"By shutting down offending newsgroups and contributing to funds that will combat child pornography online, we are working to remove this content permanently," said Verizon Deputy General Counsel Tom Dailey.

"We are doing our part to deter the accessibility of such harmful content through the internet and we are providing monetary resources that will go toward the identification and removal of online child pornography," said Sprint Senior Public Affairs Manager Matthew Sullivan. "We embrace this opportunity to build upon our own long-standing commitment to online child safety."

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.