Go Daddy Joins Leading Financial Institutions and Internet Service Providers to Eliminate Child Pornography on the Internet

Go Daddy, the World's Largest Internet Domain Name Registrar Partners with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Others to Stop the Sale of Child Pornography Online

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) today announced that GO DADDY has joined the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography (FCACP).  Go Daddy joins thirty-one leading financial institutions and Internet Service Providers which make up the FCACP that is hosted by NCMEC and its sister organization the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.    

Go Daddy is an Internet domain name registrar and Web host provider that also offers Web site builders, secure server products and e-business related software and services.  Over the years Go Daddy has worked to protect children online and was a strong advocate of the Protect Our Children Act of 2008.

"The addition of Go Daddy to the coalition gives us additional expertise in trying to block the sale of child pornography on the Internet.  One critical element in eradicating  this illegal activity is to eliminate the profitability of these enterprises," said Ernie Allen, President and CEO of NCMEC and ICMEC.  "Go Daddy will help us address issues related to domain name abuse and expands the arsenal of tools available to make it more difficult for those who seek to profit from the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet."

Child pornography is estimated to have become a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise and is among the fastest growing businesses on the Internet.  Through the Internet, thousands and possibly millions of individuals are able to access child pornography.  The exact number of child pornography Websites is difficult to determine.  In 2001, the CyberTipline, a national reporting mechanism for child sexual exploitation that is operated by NCMEC, received more than 24,000 reports of child pornography.  To date, more than 713,000 reports of child pornography have been received.

Launched in 2006, the FCACP is a unique collaboration of the nation's leading banks, credit card companies, third party payment companies and Internet services companies that are working together to remove commercial child pornography from the Internet.  Members of the FCACP represent nearly 90% of the U.S. payments industry.  

The objective of the FCACP is to disrupt the payment systems that are used to purchase child pornography and eliminate its profitability.  The group focuses on following the funds and has been successful in shutting down payment accounts that are used by illegal enterprises to sell child pornography online.  

The ability to use credit cards and other traditional payment methods to purchase child pornography made it very easy to obtain.  However, the FCACP has worked to disrupt these payment systems and has all but eliminated the ability to use credit cards.  Unfortunately, new types of payment systems continue to emerge which the FCACP is targeting in an effort to make child pornography difficult to purchase and difficult from which to profit.  

Other members of the FCACP include:  AOL, American Express Company, Banco Bradesco, Bank of America, Bank of New York - Mellon, Capital One, Chase Paymentech Solutions, CheckFree, Citigroup, CyberSource-Authorize.Net, Deutsche Bank Americas, Discover Financial Services, Elavon, First Data Corporation, First National Bank of Omaha, Global Payments Inc., Google, HSBC – North America, JP Morgan Chase, MasterCard, Microsoft, National Processing Company, North American Bancard, PayPal, Premier Bankcard, ProPay Inc., Standard Chartered Bank, Visa, Wells Fargo, Western Union, and Yahoo! Inc.

About the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.  Since it was established by Congress in 1984, the organization has operated the toll-free 24-hour national missing children's hotline which has handled more than 2,447,000 calls.  It has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 148,400 children.  The organization's CyberTipline has handled more than 816,800 reports of child sexual exploitation and its Child Victim Identification Program has reviewed and analyzed more than 32,282,900 pornography images and videos.  The organization works in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.  To learn more about NCMEC, call its toll-free, 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST or visit its web site at www.missingkids.com.

About the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children

ICMEC is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) non-governmental organization. It is the leading agency working on a global basis to combat child abduction and exploitation. It is the sister organization of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States.  For more information about ICMEC visit www.icmec.org.

SOURCE National Center for Missing & Exploited Children