This article is more than 1 year old

eGroups responds to child porn worries

"We will take all necessary steps"

We ran a story earlier about child porn pictures that were available on eGroups Web site. It has pulled the "kids porn" group since then, but we also discovered a members-only site which appears to offer worse.

While we recognise eGroups' stance that it cannot monitor everything on its site before it is posted, we remain concerned about the length of time is takes it to act. It also appears a little disturbing that no indication of action was given until the press/authorities were informed. We're sure this is merely coincidental and won't happen again.

Anyway, one reader sent several emails to eGroups outlining his concerns and we were cc'ed in on them and the subsequent reply from the company. This is the reply:

"Dear Mr. XXXXXX,

Thank you for your email in which you are informing us of child pornography content on egroups.co.uk. We will investigate this matter immediately.

All content on eGroups is of course not content published or condoned by eGroups, but always content published by users. eGroups is merely the technical platform, in this case the abused platform. Furthermore, all eGroups members are required to abide by our terms of service, which were clearly ignored in this case. We will not tolerate any abuse of our platform and service by anyone. Whenever we are notified of or become aware of illegal content by users on eGroups, as in this case, we take all necessary steps, including deleting the groups, if necessary, and passing information about illegal content on to the authorities.

Thank you again for your notification. In the future, please do not hesitate to contact me directly if you should become aware of problematic or even illegal content on eGroups.

Sincerely,
Marcus Riecke"

We don't what Marcus' job title is and are loathe to give out his personal email address for cases of abuse, but we have asked for a general abuse address where complaints can be registered. We'll update the story when eGroups gets back. ®

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