Deleting illegal sites is more efficient than blocking them

By EDRi · September 8, 2010

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: [Löschen illegaler Seiten ist effizienter als Sperren | http://www.unwatched.org/node/2163]

Eco, the Association of German Internet Economy, presented, in a press
conference in Berlin on 1 September 2010, the situation related to fighting
child pornography, reaching the conclusion that deleting was, in 98% of the
cases, more efficient than blocking illegal sites.

Thus, out of 197 child pornography sites reported at the Eco Internet
Complaint during the first half of 2010, 194 were offline in a week.
“The Websites that are hosted on the German servers were offline
regularly within one business day.”

The main reason for this successful result is the establishment of “notice
and takedown” procedures and the increase of national reporting offices. The
hosting providers are more directly informed and they are more successful in
deleting sites than the police.

This report only comes to confirm what it has lately been constantly
repeated by ISPs, Internet users, associations and specialists that blocking
sites is an inefficient measure. Several associations such as EDRi or MOGiS
have argued in several occasions (as it was the case of the draft directive
proposed by European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström to establish blocking at
the European level) that blocking is a useless and costly measure that can
be easily by-passed and which does not treat the problem, while causing
censureship issues.

Eco: Delete works up to 98% (only in German, 1.09.2010)
http://www.netzpolitik.org:80/2010/eco-loschen-funktioniert-zu-98/

Germany: Deleting instead of blocking is more efficient (only in French,
2.09.2010)
http://vasistas.wordpress.com:80/2010/09/02/allemagne-la-suppression-au-lieu-du-blocage-de-sites-pedopornographiques-est-efficace/

Delete, don’t block (30.03.2010)
http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/220161-delete-don-t-block

EDRi-gram: EDRi sends open letter to EU Commissioners to oppose Internet
blocking (10.03.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.5/edri-open-letter-internet-blocking