Five leading online service providers based in the US will jointly build a database of child-pornography images and develop other tools to help network operators and law enforcement better prevent distribution of the images, an Associated Press report said.
The companies had pledged $1 million among them to set up a technology coalition as part of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the report said.
The coalition aimed to create the database by year's end, though many details remained unsettled, the report further said.
The participating companies are Time Warner's AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, EarthLink, and United Online, the company behind NetZero and Juno.
The announcement comes as the US government is pressuring service providers to do more to help combat child pornography.