Three of the biggest Internet service providers in the United States recently announced their plans to begin a campaign for blocking the access to child porn Web sites and newsgroups as the disturbing content continues to show up over the Internet at an alarming rate.

The initiative started by Time Warner Cable, Verizon and Sprint will benefit from a joint contribution of more than $1.1 million in order to ensure a proper start for the demanding project.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo explained that the mission will certainly prove to be a challenge and will involve significant efforts, as the target will be mainly composed of the pornography suppliers rather than the consumers. According to Mr. Cuomo, the problem must be dealt with from its roots, attacking the U.S. market’s suppliers but also the international distributors.

Cuomo’s office managed to recently uncover a major source of online child porn materials named Newsgroups, which is a separate online service with no connection to Web sites. The service allows users to freely upload and download files and so far 88 such Newsgroups have been uncovered and more than 11,000 sexually lewd photos were found in the process.

According to the New York Times, the three companies agreed to help the cause only as a result of the threats issued by the attorney general about charging the Internet providers fraud and deceptive business practice accusations. The rumor was quickly dismissed by Sprint and Time Warner Cable which stated that "it became clear to us that working with the attorney general on this really tough issue was the right thing to do," as quoted by MercuryNews.

The investigations are expected to continue and a worldwide plan concerning the World Wide Web will surely be put in action once the strategy will be agreed on.