Internet Watch Foundation

 

At their meeting on 18 July 2002, Board received advice from IWF Standing Counsel and the CPS that under certain circumstances a Usenet Newsgroup name could be a potentially illegal advertisement under S.1(1)(d) of the Protection of Children Act 1978.

 

Legal advice identified important aspects of the offence:

A person publishes or causes to be published;

any advertisement;

likely to be understood as conveying;

that the advertiser distributes or shows;

indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child or intends to do so.

Such images need not be found within the newsgroup for the offence to be committed.

Thus the key elements in the wording in order to be a potentially illegal advertisement are that it conveys:

Board asked that the executive seek advice on whether a domain name or URL could likewise be considered a potentially illegal advertisement.  Advice was received from our Standing Counsel in June 2003 that a domain name and URL in certain circumstances could be an illegal advertisement.

 

IWF’s approach to dealing with a report of a potentially illegal domain name has been described within the agreed Code of Practice as follows:

“If a URL, or part of a URL, is found to be potentially illegal, the IWF will notify designated contacts within member companies and, if registered in the UK, the relevant UK domain registration authority.”

 

“The relevant UK domain registration authority” would be Nominet in most cases. Earlier email exchanges with Nominet’s policy staff with regard to their course of action if a UK registered domain name appeared to be an illegal advertisement had been inconclusive and referred to the content of sites and their need to receive a court order.

In order to clarify the position a meeting was arranged with the Managing Director and Company Secretary of Nominet.  The issues to be covered included :

The procedures for registering a domain name are automated and are not subject to any vetting procedure on the basis of their legality.  Following registration a domain name is available for use immediately.  The terms and conditions and rules associated with registration mostly refer to the contractual aspects of registration, eligibility for certain domain levels and the construction of domain names.

 

Nominet’s terms and conditions state:

A notification from the IWF is not regarded as “any other legal requirement”.

 

A domain registration will only be cancelled or suspended if a court order is received by Nominet or there has been breach of contract where the registrant has provided incorrect information, for example a false address. 

 

On receipt of a notification from IWF that a UK registered domain name was a potentially illegal advertisement Nominet are unable to suspend or cancel the registration without a court order to do so.   Nominet would welcome any early notification from IWF that a particular domain name is assessed to be a potentially illegal advertisement under the Protection of Children Act

 

The IWF Hotline has not received any reports of UK registered domain names that are potentially illegal.