Description:

DNS abuse mitigation has long been an important part of maintaining Internet safety, security, and accountability. According to the ICANN report published in March, global sum of DNS abuse, including phishing, malware, botnet, and especially spams, dropped in “absolute terms and normalized rates” over the last four years, while the total number of generic top-level domain names continue to increase.

Meanwhile, the EU "Digital Service Act" has introduced new obligations to DNS service providers. Now DNS service providers will have to consider its role beyond DNS abuse to illegal online content mitigation. Recent reports released by CENTR proposes that DNS service providers should play a role in illegal content mitigation as they facilitate access to the content. By ‘blocking’ illegal content that is defined by local legal framework, it will be more difficult for user to find or access to the content. However, the report also acknowledged that the measure ‘should be regarded as an interim measure to be used in the case of emergency’ as it does not eliminate content itself and may cause collateral damage.

We believe that lessons can be drawn from the success in DNS abuse mitigation to help governments, DNS service providers, intellectual property related parties, and Internet users become better equipped when dealing with illegal content. The workshop will focus on the best practices in DNS abuse mitigation, as well as the possibility of applying them in illegal online content mitigation to support a safe, secure and accountable Internet.