Internet companies to battle child pornography

LOS ANGELES - Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., AOL and two other U.S.

Internet companies late on Monday said they are joining forces to fight the

distribution of child pornography on the Web.

The companies, which have cooperated in the past to battle viruses, spam and

identity theft said they will work with the National Centre for Missing and

Exploited Children (NCMEC) on the new effort.

"We believe it is possible to increase the chance that child predators

will be caught and provide a deterrent to those who would be tempted to exploit

children on the Internet," said John Ryan, chief counsel at Time Warner

Inc.'s AOL.

Other participants in the effort, known as the Technology Coalition at NCMEC

include EarthLink Inc. and United Online Inc. Members who are scheduled to

testify before Congress on Tuesday morning have pledged $1 million in combined

initial funding.

Ryan said the coalition's first order of business is to attack the

distribution of illicit images of children on the Web by creating a database of

signatures or codes that identify known pornographic images so that Internet

service providers can spot them and stop them from being shared.

The group will also research and develop tools for law enforcement in

addition to studying the technology that predators use to exploit children and

to conceal their activity.

NCMEC's CyberTipline collects reports of child sexual exploitation. NCMEC has

assisted law enforcement with more than 119,800 missing child cases, resulting

in the recovery of more than 102,200 children.