VeriSign Inc., best known for managing e-commerce security and Internet addresses, said it will start distributing family-friendly movies early next year.
The movie download service will be run by AxiomTV, a subsidiary of Axiom Entertainment Inc., based in Rochester, Mich.
Axiom is developing an Internet TV channel that will run kid-themed, parent-approved movies and shows. It will deploy technology called "Mother" to block pornography, violence and foul language.
A test version will launch Jan. 8, with general availability scheduled for Feb. 1. Subscribers would buy and install some cables and other simple hardware to watch movies on their television.
AxiomTV claims to be the first Internet movie service focused on family-friendly entertainment.
CinemaNow Inc., Movielink LLC, Amazon.com Inc.'s Unbox, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL Video are among the online movie services with a wider selection.
VeriSign will be distributing AxiomTV movies through its Intelligent Content Delivery Network, which uses a peer-to-peer system to save costs and improve speeds. With peer to peer, a movie file might come from a neighbor's hard drive when available rather than from a distant server.
Mountain View-based VeriSign operates the key databases that help computers find Web sites ending in ".com" and ".net" as well as the machines containing the master list of all of the Internet's suffixes, such as ".fr" for France. It also sells digital security certificates to help consumers know when an e-commerce transaction is encrypted.
