Fergie's Tech Blog

Four Horsemen Alert [2]: Senators OK Triple Fines for Ignoring Net Child Porn

Anne Broache writes on the C|Net News Blog:

A bill just approved by a U.S. Senate committee would slap steeper fines on Internet service providers that fail to alert authorities when they obtain knowledge of child pornography on their servers.

Federal law already requires ISPs to file such reports "as soon as reasonably possible" to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Cyber Tipline--although they're not required to proactively search for the illegal images.

The Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, which the Senate Commerce Committee cleared by a unanimous voice vote on Thursday afternoon, would triple the fines for failure to comply with the current law--rising to up to $150,000 for the first offense and up to $300,000 for each subsequent violation.

ISPs would also have to include a variety of information in their reports that is not required by existing law, including any relevant user IDs, e-mail addresses, geographic information and IP addresses of the involved person or reported content.

posted by Fergie @ 9/28/2007 01:24:00 PM