The new partnership will see PIR sponsor access to two of IWF’s important programmes: their Domain Alerts and TLD Hopping List. PIR has been utilising these two IWF programmes for the past five years on their .org top-level domain (TLD) and found them extremely successful. Based on the success and PIR’s nonprofit mission, they have decided to sponsor access to the same IWF tools free of cost to all domain name registries — gTLD and ccTLD — that do not currently receive them, in an effort to protect even more children.

The IWF Domain Alerts provide real-time notifications to a participating registry if CSAM is detected on one of its domains and allow for the registry or sponsoring registrar to take fast action before the abusive content is spread further online. IWF’s Domain Alerts have resulted in the removal of more than 5,700 instances of child sexual abuse material across PIR’s 10 TLDs over the last five years.

According to the IWF, only a dozen registries currently partner with them to receive Domain Alerts. PIR’s sponsorship will extend access to Domain Alerts to over a thousand TLDs at no cost enabling any interested registry to help prevent the display of criminal, abusive content on their domains.

TLD Hopping is a practice by which criminal sites are taken offline, only to reappear, often with the same content and same name, but under a different TLD. The new programme makes the TLD Hopping List – which targets the criminal sites that the IWF identified as recognisable abuse “brands” – available free of charge for the first time to all registries. It is envisaged that with more registries having access to the lists, there will be fewer places for criminals running abuse “brands” to try to register their sites.

“PIR is proud to have worked with the Internet Watch Foundation since 2018 to identify and disrupt the spread of child sexual abuse materials in our TLDs,” said Jon Nevett, President and CEO Public Interest Registry. “Before we started working with the IWF, we did not have the tools necessary to identify child sexual abuse materials on sites in our TLDs. IWF’s Domain Alerts have enabled us to ensure that more than 5,700 instances of child sexual abuse content have been removed across our TLDs over the last five years. In furtherance of PIR’s nonprofit mission, we want to provide other registries with that same tool and protect even more children.”

In their 2022 Annual Report [pdf], the IWF received reports on 5,416 domain names hosting CSAM, an increase of 17% from 4,614 in 2021. Over half of the reports in 2022 (3,057 or 56%) were classified as being dedicated to the sale and/or distribution of child abuse images for financial gain.

The IWF’s 2022 Annual Report also reports websites containing child sexual abuse content were registered across: 209 TLDs (an increase from the 162 TLDs identified in 2021), 97 generic TLDs and 112 country code Top-Level Domains 9 (ccTLDs). Domains were traced to hosting in 55 countries.

According to the IWF, only a dozen registries currently partner with them to receive Domain Alerts. Our sponsorship will extend access to Domain Alerts to over a thousand TLDs at no cost enabling any interested registry to help prevent the display of criminal, abusive content on their domains.

“The internet is so much bigger than any one of us, and it is still growing,” said Susie Hargreaves OBE, Chief Executive of the Internet Watch Foundation. “To truly get a grip on the spread of child sexual abuse imagery, we need as many allies in the fight as we possibly can. That is why this trailblazing move from PIR is so important. They are making an investment in the future safety of the internet. It will help us continue our vital non-profit work and provide important services to smaller companies which may not have the financial means to make sure their platforms are not being abused.

“Our world-leading protection against the spread of child sexual abuse can now be shared even more widely, sending the strong message that there is nowhere safe for criminals to target to spread child sexual abuse imagery. We thank PIR for their foresight and commitment here – it is a really important piece of the jigsaw, and a message that we are all committed to working together to keep children safe.”