• June 11, 2008

Three Internet service providers -- Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner -will take steps to curb access to child pornography online in response to pressure from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Two of the ISPs -- Verizon and Sprint -- reportedly will cut off access to large swaths of Usenet newsgroups. The third, Time Warner Cable, reportedly will cut off access to all Usenet groups, even though the vast majority do not involve child porn, according to CNet.

The move raised questions of whether ISPs will more broadly start censoring content or filtering their networks for piracy, as entertainment companies would like.

Here, had the ISPs wanted to resist Cuomo's request, it seems they'd have had solid grounds to do so: The federal Communications Decency Act states they're not liable for content submitted by users.

--Wendy Davis