Disney Internet executive appointed to watchdog group

Larry Shapiro, executive vice president of business development and
operations for Disney's Buena Vista Internet Group (BVIG), has been
appointed to the COPA Commission on Child Online Protection. COPA is tasked
with identifying and studying technological or other methods to reduce and
restrict access to harmful material for minors on the Internet. "Since its
inception with Disney Online, Buena Vista Internet Group has been committed
to providing trusted environments and entertaining destinations online. We
are pleased that Larry can offer his own expertise and Disney's leadership
to COPA," said Steve Bornstein, chairman, Buena Vista Internet Group. As
executive vice president, business development and operations for Buena
Vista Internet Group, Shapiro oversees all business development, legal,
communications, human resources and administrative functions. This
announcement comes a little more than a month after the arrest of Patrick
Naughton, executive vice president of products at Infoseek Corp., the
Internet media site which is part of Disney's Go Network, on Thursday,
September 16, 1999 on the Santa Monica Pier, an amusement park area in West
Los Angeles. He is charged with interstate travel with the intention of
having sex with a minor. The arrest came after he met a female FBI agent
who had arranged to meet him there, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman
for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. On March 8, 1999, Naughton
is alleged to have started posting lewd messages on the Internet under the
screen name "HotSeattle" in an Internet chat room to a male FBI agent who
was posing as a 13-year-old-girl. It was this girl that Naughton expected
to meet at the Santa Monica Pier. Formed in 1997, Disney's Buena Vista
Internet Group oversees Web sites that include ABC.com, Disney.com,
ABCNEWS.com, ESPN.com, and Family.com.