A television news report on child pornography may include information on howadult Internet affiliate programs are being used unwittingly by child porn Websites for billing purposes. This has Adult Sites Against Child Pornography and its founder concerned that such a report might potentially affect a current investigation in which the founder and his own Web company are cooperating with law enforcement.
The piece was believed likely to run on Los Angeles's Fox News affiliate's nighttime news report November 24.
"It appears they're doing a piece covering the topic of child porn, the Internet and search engines," said Alec Helmy of Helmy Enterprises to AVN.com "But we're not sure what will be reported. They may also cover affiliate programs and how established programs could be utilized by child porn operators to bill their customers."
Helmy said the child porn investigation in question began when he learned, by way of an ASACP report, that an affiliate to his own Web operation had been dealing in child porn. That prompted Helmy and his staff to check out the site and report it immediately to law enforcement, which continues to investigate.
"It's ironic that this situation would come about to the very company that founded ASACP," Helmy said. But Helmy also said his company has handled this situation more readily than a smaller program could have. "If this would have happened to another program with absolutely no history of actively supporting the fight against hild pornography," he said, "all of a sudden it turns into a much more dangerous situation."
As AVN.com reported earlier this month, ASACP has been warning the adult Internet to beware of the possibility that child porn purveyors could use an affiliate programs as a kind of laundromat to spread their materials under legitimate cover.
Explaining how such child porners operate, Helmy said "say someone operates a child pornography Website, but they can't easily establish an account with a 3rd party billing company. But one way they could bill subscribers is to refer them to an legitimate affiliate program. The surfer is directed to click through an affiliate link URL and join a legitimate adult site.
"Upon joining, he is instructed to send the confirmation e-mail to the operator, which acts as confirmation that the surfer has joined - and the operator has earned a commision. After which the operator gives login access to the child porn customer," Helmy continued. "Meanwhile, the legitimate affiliate program is not aware of this activity since the operator may have used a generic adult site URL to establish their affiliate account."
And Helmy acknowledged that if such a child porn purveyor used a Helmy affiliate program, they are most definitely succeeding in doing likewise through other programs - who remain unaware. "as you could imagine this type of activity puts legitimate adult affiliate programs in great danger."
Helmy urged all affiliate programs, major, large, medium, or small, to keep a close eye on their affiliates' activities, monitoring where those affiliates' traffic is coming from, "not the account registration information on file but the actual sites directing traffic to them, and to keep an eye out on suspicious activity." ASACP executive director Joan Irvine mentioned that, in fact, while on the legal panel at Webmaster Access West.
"Apprehending child pornographers is similar to fighting the war against drugs - its a continuous effort," Irvine said. "These criminals prey upon defenseless children and addicts. They also use unknowing legitimate businesses as a method to get paid. Reports to the ASACP hotlines have made it possible to identify these new methods being used by child porn operators. ASACP immediately alerts law enforcement and the companies that are being duped.
"These criminals are as clever as they are devious," she continued. "ASACP's vigilance helps cut off their money by identifying these criminals. As the law enforcement adage suggests, we follow the money. It can often lead around the world, involving other countries and international financial institutions. ASACP and the adult site industry fights this plague whenever and wherever it is found."
