I was surprised about the current postings on GFY on .xxx and ASACP. All this information has been available to the public since 5/17/04.
I would like to make a few statements.
1. The ASACP mission is to help battle child pornography and protect children on the internet. It does this by providing a CP reporting hotline. It also provides an Approved Member program which offers the benefit to its members of monitoring their sites which provides proof to government agencies that these adult sites are in no way involved with CP. Both of these efforts are progressing very well.
2. ASACP was approached for support. We decided that it was not in our mission to ?approve? or ?disapprove? such things. If the registry went through and they wanted to give ASACP money, it would be accepted, but we were not willing to take an official position for or against the registry, as that is not what ASACP does. ASACP reports CP to government agencies."
3. Alec Helmy of XBiz was the person who founded and funded ASACP from 1996 to 2002. However, ASACP is now a nonprofit association and completely separate from Alec's entities. Alec has always been diligent in his efforts to maintain this separation and in no way benefits financially from ASACP.
4. Recently, ASACP changed its name to the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection to more effectively represent its members and nonprofit status, and work in harmony with government agencies and mainstream associations. The organization`s prior name and site no longer reflected the depth of its expanded mission. (
http://www.asacp.org/press/pr030205.html).
5. ASACP has provided a child pornography reporting hotline since 1996 and sends over 3000 validated reports to the FBI, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and other relevant international hotlines annually. Last month, ASACP launched cpHotline.org with P2P Patrol (
http://www.asacp.org/press/pr050305.html).
The P2P PATROL initiative, which represents a voluntary collaboration of technology and related service companies along with government agencies and trade groups, offers programs focusing on education, deterrence, and enforcement for combating online child pornography, and operates the P2Ppatrol.com website.
CPHotline.org is a valuable tool complimenting P2P PATROL in helping consumers who inadvertently encounter CP to recognize, remove, and report it.
6. ASACP`s next project is to work with the cell phone industry to develop a solution for its users to report child pornography as this is the newest distribution method.
7. As indicated by their work with the P2P Patrol, ASACP is pleased to help other groups be more effective in their efforts. On May 17, 2004, ASACP wrote a letter to IFFOR supporting their efforts to protect children;
"I applaud IFFOR and ICM Registry's initiative to integrate tools and technology of finding and reporting child pornography websites into their proposed registry application to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
I also support the online adult industry developing their own credible business practices in conjunction with other impacted stakeholders and support the IFFOR initiative to create a line of communication between the adult industry and the global community."
8. As stated in the letter of 5/17/05 9
http://forum.icann.org/lists/stld-rf...msg00061.html), "ASACP has been in negotiations with the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR) and ICM for it to serve as a hotline for reviewing reports of suspected child pornography and to carry out the secondary monitoring of .xxx sites for child pornography", just as it was negotiation with P2P Patrol (refer to #4 above).
9. My understanding is the IFFOR will contribute to various child protection associations, not just ASACP. This is no different than ASACP applying for government and other grants which it is doing this year.