The Alliance for a Safer Internet is taking aim at Cox Communications Inc.’s high-speed-data service.
The group said Tuesday that it is launching a petition drive to get the MSO to halt its distribution of Usenet newsgroups.
“Cox is distributing newsgroups that are generally known to carry child pornography and other obscene images," Alliance for a Safer Internet president Paul Cardin said in a prepared statement. "It's been going on for years, and it's time that Cox put an end to it."
Cardin continued, “The material carried in some of these newsgroups is absolutely horrific. And beyond the obviously illegal newsgroups, there are hundreds of other image newsgroups dedicated to every kind of pornography imaginable. We don't think Cox should be in the pornography business at all, and we're asking them to discontinue offering all newsgroups, just like AOL [America Online Inc.] did a few months ago. Cox has been a good neighbor in the communities it serves. But it needs to be a better neighbor than this.”
The group said other cable operators and Internet-service providers would be the target of similar actions soon.
