Google Kiddy Porn Suit Dropped by N.Y. Politico

A politician from Long Island, N.Y., on Wednesday dropped a federal lawsuit he filed against search giant Google in May for allegedly profiting from child pornography that was linked to from its site, the Associated Press reports via the New York Post.

Jeffrey Toback of the Nassau County Legislature accused Google of including paid links to sites that posted child pornography on its search results pages.

Toback dropped the suit 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,” according to the AP. The Long Island politico will sit down with Google representatives as soon as they can make time for him, the AP reports.

From the first accusation, Google vehemently denied Toback’s charges and noted that it has a number of security measures in place to prevent links to child pornography from appearing on its pages, and it also said it reports any known kiddy porn sites to law enforcement officials.

“If Mr. Toback would like to talk with us about something, he should consider approaching it with a phone call, letter or other common form of communication, not an irresponsible lawsuit,” said Steve Langdon, a Google spokesman, according to the AP.

Langdon also noted that Google was “pleased that the suit has been dismissed and believes it was completely without merit,” the AP reports.

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