Fighting child porn: New help

Great news in the fight against child pornography: On Capitol Hill today, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children today unveiled the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography. Made up of 18 of "the world's most prominent financial institutions and Internet industry leaders," according to the NCMEC's press release, the coalition includes multinational companies that enable transactions online, such as Citigroup, Bank of America, Visa, American Express, PayPal, as well as Internet companies such as AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft. It's a logical and ethical development, since – as the National Center's presser says – "child pornography has become a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise and is among the fastest growing businesses on the Internet." The number of child-porn sites is hard to capture, but the NCMEC's CyberTipline (CyberTipline.com or 800.843.5678, for reporting online child exploitation) shows that growth this way: "In 2001 [the Tipline] received more than 24,400 reports of child pornography. By the beginning of 2006, that number had climbed to more than 340,000." [The Observer UK recently reported on growth both in Web sites and in attempts in the UK to access them.] The coalition will be collaborating with international anti-child-exploitation organizations such as Child Focus of Belgium, the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children, and the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE). In related news, US and Canadian law-enforcement officials today announced they'd cracked an international online child-porn operation, arresting 27 people in four countries, CNET reports.