ISP Admits Guilt In Porn Case

An Internet service provider has pleaded guilty to criminal facilitation in what New York state's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says is a breakthrough case against child pornography.

Buffnet, as a corporation, pleaded guilty two years after the state first pressured the company to stop some activities by Internet users through the service, said Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp. Even images taken from the site of a 4-year-old being raped and showed to company officials two years ago didn't make the firm budge, Dopp said.

The company admitted that it failed to take action when it was notified by a customer as well as law enforcement that one of the newsgroups it carried was being used to distribute graphic child pornography, Spitzer said Friday.

Its plea was entered in West Seneca Town Court on Thursday.

AP

Elliot Spitzer

It was the first time an Internet provider acknowledged responsibility for child pornography transmitted by its customers, he said.

At sentencing, the company could be hit with a fine of up to $5,000 and enter into an agreement to cooperate in further investigations, Dopp said. No individuals were charged.

"This case establishes a commonsense standard for the Internet," Spitzer said of the Internet service provider (ISP). "When an ISP becomes aware of illegal child pornography available in its system, the ISP cannot put its head in the sand."

A spokesman for the West Seneca, New York, company had no immediate comment Friday.

Just over a year ago a Buffalo judge gave permission for Spitzer to seize corporate records from Buffnet and force its employees to testify in an international probe of Internet porn sites. The company had tried to quash nearly a dozen subpoenas.

Buffnet was among dozens of Internet providers in New York state that were reviewed as part of an investigation of Pedo University, an internet "college" that distributed erotic pictures of children.

The international probe has already resulted in more than a dozen arrests in the United States, Canada, Sweden and New Zealand.

By Michael Gormley
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