Internet Watch Foundation

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is delighted to announce that US and Israel-based Commtouch has joined its growing membership, now at an all time high, and, simultaneously, Commtouch has launched a new IT tool to help combat the distribution of child sexual abuse content on the internet.

 

The IWF list of URLs with child sexual abuse content will be incorporated into Commtouch’s Anti-Spam solution to screen emails for links to child sexual abuse content thereby further protecting customers from accessing illegal images.

Peter Robbins, IWF CEO, said: "Illegal online content is a worldwide problem and global cooperation is vital to combating this abuse. We are very pleased to welcome Commtouch to join our self-regulatory approach to fighting this insidious crime."

 

Gideon Mantel, Commtouch CEO, said: "Battling cyber crimes requires cooperation between community groups, law enforcement and advanced security technologies. We are committed to working with the IWF to eradicate the use of email to exploit children. In order to encourage the widest possible coverage, the IWF-compliance feature has been made freely available to all our anti-spam OEM partners and several have already begun offering this special protection."

 

IWF is the UK independent ‘Hotline’, whose aim is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, especially child abuse images hosted anywhere in the world. Since its inception a decade ago, IWF has processed an average of 1000 reports per month.

 

Commtouch has integrated the IWF list into its real-time Anti-Spam service allowing all of its OEM partners to offer the anti-child sexual abuse feature to their customers.

 

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The IWF is the only authorised organisation in the UK operating an internet ‘Hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report their exposure to potentially illegal content online.

 

Our aim is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, specifically:

We work in partnership with UK Government departments such as the Home Office and the Department of Trade and Industry to influence initiatives and programs developed to combat online abuse. This dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe, to ensure greater awareness of global issues and responsibilities.

Commtouch Software Ltd. (NASDAQ: CTCH) is dedicated to protecting and preserving the integrity of the world's most important communications tool -- email. Commtouch has over 16 years of experience developing messaging software and is a global developer and provider of proprietary anti-spam, Zero-Hour virus protection and IP Reputation solutions. Using core technologies including RPD (Recurrent Pattern Detection™), the Commtouch Detection Center analyzes billions of email messages per week to identify new spam and malware outbreaks within minutes of their introduction into the Internet. Integrated by more than 50 OEM partners, Commtouch technology protects thousands of organizations, with hundreds of millions of users in over 100 countries. Commtouch is headquartered in Netanya, Israel, and has a subsidiary in Mountain View, CA. For more information, see: www.commtouch.com, including the Commtouch online lab detailing spam statistics and charts.

Recurrent Pattern Detection, RPD and Zero-Hour are trademarks, and Commtouch is a registered trademark, of Commtouch Software Ltd. U.S. Patent No. 6,330,590 is owned by Commtouch.  

Sarah Robertson

UK: +44 (0)1223 237 700

Rebecca Steinberg Herson

US: 650-864-2112

Int’l: +972-9-863-6877