IWF finds child abuse imagery on new gTLD domains
The Internet Watch Foundation said it found child abuse imagery on new gTLD domain names for the first time in 2015.
The UK-based organization, tasked with identifying and blocking child abuse imagery online, today released its 2015 annual report.
The report says that it found 68,092 unique URLs with this illegal content in the year, spread over 1,991 domains. It says:
Five top level domains (.com .net .ru .org .se) accounted for 91 per cent of all webpages identified as containing child sexual abuse images and videos.
However, it also says that child abuse was found on new gTLDs for the first time.
While the report doesn’t make much of this trend, it should be worrying.
The IWF said it took action on 436 new gTLD domains in 2015, many of which “appeared to have been registered specifically for that purpose”.
While new gTLD names appear to be responsible for a very small percentage of flagged URLs, they seem to be 21% of the total number of domains on which child abuse imagery was found.
This discrepancy may be explained by the fact that 78% of the total abuse URLs were found on free-to-use image hosting sites, probably concentrated in .com.
The IWF added that 138 of the new gTLD domains hosted “disguised” abuse sites. These are sites where illegal content is only shown when visitors arrive from a specific referrer link.
The IWF offers a “Domain Alerts” service to its members, which allows registries and registrars to quickly take down domains confirmed as containing illegal material.
Judging by its member list, not many domain name companies are members.
Members include Go Daddy, ICM Registry, .London Domains, Rightside, Afilias and Nominet.
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