A Long Island lawmaker who claimed search engine company Google Inc. was profiting from child pornography has dropped the lawsuit he’d filed against the company in May.
Jeffrey Toback, a member of the Nassau County Legislature, claimed Google had “paid links” to websites containing child pornography.
At the time the lawsuit was filed, a Google spokesperson denied the allegations, saying the company takes many steps to prevent access to child pornography, including removing it from its search engine, reporting it to law enforcement officials, and cooperating with authorities to go after offenders.
“When we find or are made aware of any child pornography, we remove it from our products, including our search engine,” said Google spokesman Steve Langdon. “We also report it to the appropriate law enforcement officials and fully cooperate with the law enforcement community to combat child pornography.”
A “notice of discontinuance” dropping the suit was filed in federal court on Wednesday. The suit initially was filed in the New York Supreme Court in Mineola, but was later moved to federal court in White Plains. Toback last month said he filed the lawsuit because oversight of Google was beyond the purview of county legislators.
Toback claimed his reason for dropping the suit was because “Google has offered to sit down and discuss the issues. They didn’t want to do that while litigation was pending, so we’re taking them up on their offer.” The legislator previously has sponsored local legislation that would the change the legal age to purchase cigarettes to 19 as well as limit teen access to tanning salons.
He said a meeting would be scheduled with Google officials “at their earliest convenience” to discuss what he termed “very serious issues.”
