Google 'must do more' to combat child porn

By Alex Stevenson

Google is facing calls to do more against child pornography after Mark Bridger was found guilty of murdering April Jones yesterday.

The internet search engine giant, already under fire for paying just £6 million of corporation tax in 2011 despite sales of £3.2 billion, has insisted it has a "zero-tolerance policy".

But John Carr, a member of the government's Council on Child Internet Safety, has suggested it could do more to prevent the spread of paedophilia images online.

He told the Today programme Google blocks access to addresses on the web it knows contains child abuse images.

"That's being reactive - my argument is they can and should be proactive," Carr explained.

"They could for example turn safe search on by default. That would block access to all hardcore porn sites.

"Google could set it up in such a way they'd have to register with them to get an account. They could ask them to verify if they're 18 or above. That would be a huge deterrent for many of these guys. That would stop them getting on the pathway to child abuse images we've been discussing."

Carr said being forced to register to view pornography would act as a significant deterrent to paedophiles, who use mainstream pornographic websites advertising 'barely legal' or 'teen sex' images as a gateway for illegal material.

"They will eventually get to places where the images are," he added.

"Blocking access or putting any kind of barriers to sites like that would help reduce the number of guys who get involved with this stuff in the first place."

Carr's comments followed yesterday's guilty verdict in the murder of five-year-old April in Powys last October. It emerged during Bridger's trial that police had found violent pornographic images of children on his laptop.

Not all agree such steps as a default 'safe' option on search engines are necessary, however.

Conservative backbencher Claire Perry tweeted: "I'm genuinely perplexed by tweeps who respond to any debate on illegal child abuse images with a "Mary Whitehouse" riposte ..."