Search giant Google is taking its role as a leading Internet playing seriously by joining the fight against child pornography.
The company has followed in the footsteps of other online players like AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo by becoming part of the Technology Coalition funded by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and its sister agency the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC).
NCMEC operates a CyberTipline, which had received more than 340,000 reports of child pornography at the beginning of this year. That figure has jumped massively from just over 24,000 reports in 2001.
"...These companies set aside their competitive zeal to work together to protect the world's most vulnerable citizens," said Ernie Allen, president and chief executive of NCMEC and ICMEC.
"Google has joined these efforts as part of its zero-tolerance policy on child pornography and those who would promote it," said Nicole Wong, associate general counsel for Products and Intellectual Property at Google.
Earlier this week, the Home Office was blasted for inadvertently directing people towards porn as part of a campaign to protect children from such obscenities.
The Home Office Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre's website is located at www.thinkuknow.co.uk. Unfortunately, some people heard it advertised on a radio station and typed 'you' instead of 'u' for the URL.
This error led some visitors to a site of an adult nature. Due to the mix up the erroneous site has been taken down.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld the complaint and said that the ad should not be broadcast again in its current format.
