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News Burst: Thus becomes first ISP to patrol for child porn

Will Knight ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 21 Feb 2001 11:15 GMT

ISP Thus has taken the unprecedented step of promising to remove known child pornography newsgroups from its servers amid growing concerns in the UK that the Internet is teeming with predatory paedophiles.

The ISP, which is behind the brand Demon Internet, says it will take a more proactive approach to policing and removing paedophile content from Web pages and newsgroups hosted by its servers.

Thus, a founder member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), is pushing for the IWF to produce its hit list of known paedophile sites on a monthly basis.

"While it is impossible for ISPs to stop all illegal content from being published on newsgroups, I believe that there is much that can be done to police what is currently out there -- to protect the vulnerable and to increase our vigilance," said director of legal and regulation at Thus Keith Monserrat in a statement.

Full story to follow.

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