zvelo Joins 93 US-Based Electronic Service Providers and 8 Internet Law Enforcement Agencies on Major URL Project to Prevent Re-Victimization
Alexandria, VA – September 27, 2011 – The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) announced today that zvelo, Inc. has joined the organization’s Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Initiative, which works to reduce child pornography on the Internet. Since 2007, NCMEC has collaborated with members of the Internet industry in an effort to reduce the availability of child pornography online. The URL Project currently involves 93 electronic service providers (ESPs) representing 74% of the United States’ ESP Market Share, Internet service providers (ISPs), security companies and 8 international law enforcement agencies.
“zvelo, Inc. is a leading provider of technology that detects malicious websites and is able to categorize tens of billions of web pages daily through its community of users,” said Ernie Allen, President and CEO of NCMEC. “The involvement of zvelo, Inc. in the URL Initiative is a major step forward in our effort to protect families from inadvertent access to child pornography and reduce the re-victimization that occurs every time the image is viewed.”
As of December 2010, according to data compiled by NCMEC, 38% of children who have been identified by law enforcement as victims of child pornography are pre-pubescent and 6% are infants/toddlers.
Reports of URLs containing apparent child pornography are reported by the public, ESPs, ISPs and security companies to the NCMEC CyberTipline (1-800-THE-LOST or www.cybertipline.com). NCMEC analysts review the Web page and generate a report that is provided to law enforcement. If there is no known law enforcement activity, NCMEC will add the Web page address to a daily URL list. NCMEC applies certain specific criteria for Web pages to be included on the list which includes the “worst of the worst” child pornography content and the most extreme images of pre-pubescent children being sexually abused.
The URL Initiative is a voluntary program and the list is made available to the companies who have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NCMEC. Each day, an updated list of active URLs meeting the specific criteria for inclusion, are made available to the participating ESPs, ISPs and security companies to ensure the content is not being hosted on their system.
zvelo, Inc. will add the URLs on the list to a “Criminal Activities” category within an exclusive URL database, maintained for zvelo Inc.’s Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Partners’ users. Additionally, zvelo, Inc. will continue to make reports to the CyberTipline regarding URLs containing apparent child pornography that are identified by zvelo Inc.’s website categorization technologies.
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 3,421,390 calls. It has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 166,800 children. The organization’s CyberTipline has handled more than 1,226,080 reports of child sexual exploitation and its Child Victim Identification Program has reviewed and analyzed more than 55,945,563 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.org.
About zvelo, Inc.
zvelo is a leading provider of web content classification and detection of objectionable, malicious and threat detection services with a mission of making the Internet safer and more secure. zvelo combines advanced artificial intelligence-based contextual categorization with sophisticated malicious and phishing detection capabilities that customers integrate into network and endpoint security, URL and DNS filtering, brand safety, contextual targeting, and other applications where data quality, accuracy, and detection rates are critical.
