Britain creates new web watchdog

In the United Kingdom, the Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) has been created to teach children about web dangers, target harmful net content, and establish a code of conduct for sites featuring material uploaded by users.

The council, which will report to the prime minister, will have a membership of more than 100 organizations, including technology companies such as Microsoft and Google, websites such as Facebook, and mobile phone companies. Their goal is to create a child internet safety strategy that will establish a public awareness safety campaign, establish measures to protect children and young people, promote responsible advertising to children online, and establish voluntary codes of practice for web sites.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown noted that it will be a "...challenge for us is to make sure young people can use the internet safely and do so with the minimum of restrictions but the maximum of opportunities."

Comcast dumps Usenet

The trend toward banning Usenet news groups, begun early in the summer as a result of actions by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, continues with the announcement by Comcast that they have become the latest Internet Service Provider to shut down access to Usenet newsgroups as part of a voluntary agreement to try and fight child porn online. The voluntary measures were part of an agreement among the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).

Seventeen other cable providers across the US have now taken similar action. Critics worry that these actions are overzealous and could turn into a trend that enables governments to regulate content that is arbitrarily deemed harmful to the public good.