At the Internet summit on children and the Net in Washington on Monday, America Online joined a chorus of content providers and ISPs in promising to work more closely with law-enforcement officials to track pedophiles online.
Interviews with AOL's chief counsel, George Vradenburg, and his second-in-command, John Ryan, affirmed the online giant's commitment to, in Vradenburg's words, "be watchful and to cooperate with law-enforcement officials ... to persuade the governments of the world that this is a friendly and positive medium, and convince parents that this is a safe place for their children."
Details of how AOL is planning to more closely monitor illegal activity on its own system and to cooperate with police, however, were not forthcoming.
In recent months, Ryan has led no-cost seminars for law-enforcement officials - and, in Budapest last June, for Interpol agents - to train them to, in Vradenburg's words, "gain the same expertise in cyberspace that they have in meatspace" in tracking criminals and successfully prosecuting cases. At the Washington summit, Ryan played a tape he produced that provides an elementary education in online protocols and tips in evidence-gathering in computer-related cases - where to look for incriminating files on a hard drive, how to subpoena user records from ISPs. AOL will give the tape to law-enforcement agencies on request.
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Ryan observed that many sectors of law enforcement suffer from "a lack of basic knowledge" of effective online investigatory techniques. He said one of the most common questions officers in his seminars ask is whether AOL tracks the movement of users through its system. Ryan said AOL "does not monitor members' activity online."
Ryan was reminded that AOL "guides" do scrutinize chat-room conversations for language prohibited by AOL's terms of service, and that its "locate a member online" feature allows users to track the movements of others. His response: Only certain areas of America Online (such as the "Kids Only" channel) are monitored by guides, and company records "do not break down" along lines such as use of particular features like chat rooms and newsgroups. Real-time chat accounts for 20 percent to 25 percent of the total time AOL members spend online.
Vradenburg underlined AOL's determination to "make the Internet medium ubiquitous," attributing some of the "irrational phobias" about the Net to "sensational press" about the prevalence of online predators and cybercriminals.
"The media itself does not understand the balances and risks" of the online world, Vradenburg observed. Although he does not expect the Net "to be more of a haven [from criminal activity] than the rest of the world," he hopes that educational efforts like Ryan's seminars would "level the playing field ... so that we don't have continuing pressure for new laws" against offenses that are already illegal.
Vradenburg applauded this week's summit for "reflecting the openness - and the variety of voices - of the medium itself." Meeting with cabinet members and Vice President Al Gore was an important coming of age for the industry, he said.
"We're not going to be a medium that just closes ranks and talks about the First Amendment. We're grown-ups. We can talk - just don't try to regulate us. As adults, we're standing up there as if we were the equal of the government."
