It was recently announced that Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to begin blocking child porn on websites and online bulletin boards in a deal made with New York’s Attorney General. The Attorney General of California, along with Governor Schwarzenegger, has now asked that ISPs under California jurisdiction agree to do the same.

This would require the blocking of online distribution sites for this material which includes newsgroups. The New York decision has newsgroups being discontinued but many say that they continue to use these groups for legitimate purposes and that they don’t want California’s ISPs to block them. With over 100 ISPs in the state, including AOL and AT&T, this could affect a large number of users but the AG says that any business with the ability to increase child safety should take the responsibility upon themselves to do so.