Black Church Responds to Internet Pornography Companies Targeting Black Communities

Black pastors across the country are taking a stand on Internet pornography companies that are targeting the Black community by highjacking domain names of Black leaders to use for pornography websites.

BOSTON, May 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Both MartinLutherKing.com and JesseJackson.com are
now owned by an Internet pornography company known as Club Pink. Because
domain names go to the first group registering them, pornography companies
often buy domain names that might draw people unknowingly to their
pornography site. While in many cases, domain name highjacking violates
trademark laws, it requires an expensive, lengthy process for the
legitimate owners of the trademarks and names to remove the highjackers.
    Last month, TechMission's Safe Families Program and the Black
Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston hosted an online safety workshop for
the Black community addressing concerns around those intentionally
targeting the Black community (available online at
http://www.safefamilies.org/). The workshop was led by Bil Mooney-McCoy, a
Black pastor in inner-city Boston who also serves as the Safe Families
Program Director. The workshop was held at the historic Black church,
Global Ministries Christian Church (GMCC), where TechMission initially
began.
    The Safe Families Program demonstrates that the Black Church is leading
the world in addressing the issue of online safety. The Safe Families
website provides free software to protect children by blocking
objectionable material online. TechMission's Safe Families software
represents a long awaited update, building on the We-Blocker.com software,
which has been the most popular free filtering software (last updated in
2001). The website provides the following training materials:
    * For parents: steps to implement an online safety, a software ratings
      guide and a family internet safety pledge
    * For pastors: steps for dealing with pornography in their churches
      including church bulletin inserts
    * For nonprofits and schools: training materials and curriculum for online
      safety
    * For pornography addicts: steps for recovery from pornography addiction
      including a media/pornography sobriety covenant, questions to test for
      sex addiction and lists of counseling and other resources
    Safe Families grew out of TechMission's (http://www.techmission.org)
Association of Christian Community Computer Centers (AC4), which includes
hundreds of Black churches addressing the digital divide. AC4 sites served
over 46,760 participants last year.
    For more information, contact Bil Mooney-McCoy (bil@techmission.org) or
Andrew Sears (andrew@techmission.org) or at 617-282-9798.