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Washington, DC (AB) - A child safety group is calling for a ban on Google’s ‘Street View’ application, charging the feature provides strangers too much detail on a child’s location.

Stop Internet Predators, a project of Stop Child Predators, Wednesday urged parents to ban Street View in their neighborhoods.

“Google Street View can memorialize a minor’s photograph in association with a physical address without parental consent for all on the Internet to see,” the group said in a statement.

The group announced an online petition parents can sign.

“Until action is taken to ensure technology is kid-friendly, parents and communities are charged with the responsibility,” said Stacie Rumenap, Executive Director of Stop Child Predators, the organization leading the Stop Internet Predator campaign.

Washington, DC — The administrator of peer-to-peer Internet piracy group EliteTorrents.org Tuesday was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $20,000, the Justice Department announced.

U.S. District Court Judge James P. Jones ordered Daniel Dove, 26, previously of Clintwood, Va., to serve 18 months in prison for his role as a high-ranking administrator of a peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet piracy group.

During the trial, the government presented evidence showing Dove was administrator of EliteTorrents.org, a group that distributed copyrighted pre-released movies. Prosecutors said Dove managed a group of Elite Torrent members known as “Uploaders” who used very high-speed Internet connections to supply the pirated content to the group.

The conviction is the eighth from Operation D-Elite, a federal crackdown on illegal distribution of copyrighted material via P2P networks using BitTorrent file-distribution technology.

Operation D-Elite targeted leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents. At its height, the Elite Torrents group attracted more than 125,000 members and helped illegal distribution of approximately 700 movies, which were downloaded more than 1.1 million times, prosecutors said.

Tulsa, Okla. — A missing eight-year old Denham Springs, Okla. girl was recovered Tuesday night in Oklahoma City. U.S. Marshals arrested the girl’s mother, 39-year old Jennifer O. Winter on a kidnapping warrant.

Louisiana’s Fugitive Task Force in August began searching for Winter and her eight-year old daughter on behalf of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In November 2007, Winter fled the Baton Rouge, La. area with her daughter following a custody dispute.

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WASHINGTON, DC —Johnson Matthey Inc., the owner and operator of a gold and silver refining facility in Salt Lake City, plead guilty Thursday to violating the Clean Water Act by failing to properly report wastewater discharges at the facility, the Justice Department announced.

The former plant manager and former general manager both plead guilty to making false statements and were sentenced by Dee Benson, U.S. District Judge for the District of Utah.

As part of a plea agreement worked out with federal prosecutors, the company will pay a $3 million fine.

Former plant manager Paul Greaves and former general manager John McKelvie admitted to one felony violation for making false statements when reporting pollutants under the Clean Water Act at the precious metals refining facility. Greaves was sentenced to 1 year probation, a $500 fine and 20 hours community service and McKelvie was sentenced to 1 year probation, a $1,000 fine and 20 hours community service.

The Salt Lake City refines both gold and silver from a semi-refined product called dore. As part of the refining process, pollutants including selenium, accumulated in the wastewater. After treatment to remove the selenium, JMI’s wastewater was discharged to a sewer leading to Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility (Central Valley) and discharged to the Jordan River.

In 1999 a JMI auditer told the compay it was violating its industrial discharge permit by internally screening the water samples prior to them being submitted to an outside laboratory for analysis, the government said. JMI’s permit required samples be representative.

In January 2000, to avoid disclosing true concentrations of the selenium-contaminated wastewater discharged from the facility, employees continued to screen the wastewater, submitting only those with low selenium concentration to outside review.

“Accurate information about pollution discharges is essential for government to protect the public and the environment,” said Lori A. Hanson, Special Agent in Charge of EPA’s Crimininal Investigation Division in Denver. “Our criminal investigations will go as high up the corporate hierarchy as the evidence permits. Companies and their senior managers who submit false reports or bogus data will be vigorously prosecuted.”

U.S. District Judge Dee Benson set sentencing for the corporation for Dec. 2.

Stockholm, Sweden — Swedish carrier TeliaSonera Thursday announced it will block user access to material deemed promoting child sexual abuse. The free service is being offered to Internet Service Providers and others.

The service was created in partnership with NetClean, a Swedish-based organization offering products for safe Internet surfing by children, and the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation.

The Internet block works by comparing a user’s destination against a constantly-updated list of URLs provided by IWF. If the two match, a “stop sign” is displayed.

“We fully support the initiative to implement international blocking of offensive websites. Blocking access to these sites is a vital step against a harmful industry and toward a safer world for our children. These sites are not just illegal and deeply hurtful for the abused children but also serve as the financial engine for the criminal activity on the Internet.” Anders Persson, Criminal Intelligence Officer at Interpol’s General Secretariat in Lyon, France and Chairman of the Sub-Group Victim Identification of Interpol’s specialist group on Crimes against Children.

In July, several U.S. ISPs joined with New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, pledging to block Web sites and newsgroups believed to spread child pornography.

LOS ANGELES, CA — Fonality, an open source Internet calling service, Thursday announced it had secured $12 million in financing led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund with Intel Capital. Fonality said it will use the money to expand VoIP services for small and medium-sized businesses.

“This investment by DFJ and Intel Capital, two top-tier investment firms, gives us the freedom to further accelerate our growth and acquisition strategy,” said Fonality CEO Chris Lyman in a statement.

Fonality links e-mail, voicemail, landline and mobile calling into a single desktop application. The services are resold by Dell as well as directly at Fonality’s Web site.

“You could never tell your best salesperson: ‘work from home or the road today and take sales calls as if you were in the office.’ This used to be a $100,000 expense. Fonality’s open source technology gives growing businesses a big-time presence that fits within their budgets,” Lyman said.

As part of the DFJ investment, Randy Glein, managing director of DFJ Growth Fund, has joined Fonality’s board of directors.

Fonality employs 140 people with offices in three countries.

WASHINGTON, DC (DOJ) — A Florida man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for smuggling Mexican women and girls into the U.S. and forcing them into prostitution.

U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez also ordered Juan Luis Cadena-Sosa to pay jointly with his co-defendants more than $964,000 to the victims.

“Juan Luis Cadena-Sosa was a member of a conspiracy that lured young women and girls from Mexico to the United States with false promises of a better life and then forced them into modern day-slavery in a network of brothels that spanned the East Coast,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Becker. “We thank the Mexican authorities for working with us to extradite him from Mexico to face justice in Florida, where the exploitation took place.”

In 1998, 15 defendants were indicted in the matter. Cadena-Sosa remained a fugitive until extradited from Mexico to the United States in November 2007. Nine defendants, including Cadena-Sosa, have now been found guilty in U.S. federal court. One was convicted in Florida state court. Another was convicted on related charges in Mexico. A third died while a fugitive. Three defendants remain at large. Those convicted in U.S. federal court have received prison sentences ranging from 30 months to 15 years.