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Identity Digital publishes treasure trove of abuse data

Kevin Murphy, October 3, 2022, 16:18:36 (UTC), Domain Registries

Identity Digital, the old Donuts, has started publishing quarterly reports containing a wealth of data on reported abuse and the actions it takes in response.

The data for the second quarter, released (pdf) at the weekend, shows that the registry receives thousands of reports and suspends hundreds of domains for DNS abuse, but the number of domains it takes down for copyright infringement is quite small.

ID said that it received 3,007 reports covering 3,816 unique domains in the quarter, almost 93% of which related to phishing. The company said the complaints amounted to 0.024% of its total registered domains.

Most cases were resolved by third parties such as the registrar, hosting provider, or registrant, but ID said it suspended (put on “protective hold”) 746 domains during the period. In only 11% of cases was no action taken.

The company’s hitherto opaque “Trusted Notifier” program, which allows the Motion Picture Association and Recording Industry Association of America to request takedowns of prolific piracy sites resulted in six domain suspensions, all as a result of MPA requests.

The Internet Watch Foundation, which has similar privileges, resulted in 26 domains being reported for child sexual abuse material. Three of these were suspended, and the remainder were “remediated” by the associated registrar, according to ID.

The report also breaks down how many requests for private Whois data the company received, and how it processed them. Again, the numbers are quite low. Of requests for data on 44 domains, 18 were tossed for incompleteness, 23 were refused, and only three resulted in data being handed over.

Perhaps surprisingly, only two of the requests related to intellectual property. The biggest category was people trying to buy the domain in question.

This is a pretty cool level of transparency from ID and it’ll be interesting to see if its rivals follow suit.


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Comments (3)

  1. I agree with you, this is pretty cool. I was prepared for them to be just another boring rebranded and lifeless company.

    It’s nice to be wrong sometimes.

  2. Theo Geurts says:

    The amount of LEA requests could be an indicator that LEAs have a capacity problem when it comes to launching investigations.

    Which might be an issue for the Whois Disclosure System.

  3. Benedict Addis says:

    @Theo perhaps the quantity of LEA requests indicates that the lookup system might not be best sited at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.”

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