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Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement SECTION 2 ACTION NO. 2.8: Integrate awareness of IP crime and its illicit proceeds into broader efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of transnational organized crime networks. IPEC, in coordination with relevant members of the U.S. Interagency Strategy Planning Committees on IP Enforcement, will engage international partners to examine opportunities to integrate awareness of IP crime into broader efforts to combat money laundering and financing of criminal networks. B. IN FUTHERANCE OF A HEALTHY DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM. 1. Assessing the Enforcement Challenge of Domain Name Hopping. For purposes of this section, the Administration has directed its focus to detailing some of the reported tactics used by criminal actors in the online environment and the corresponding enforcement challenges. In observance of the established global multistakeholder approaches used to address domain name issues and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) role as the convener of the U.S. government’s DNS interagency working group which establishes U.S. policy positions on domain name issues broadly and with respect to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), including the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and its working groups, the U.S. Interagency Strategic Planning Committees on IP Enforcement reaffirms the principle that the “U.S. Government remains dedicated to working within the multistakeholder construct at ICANN and all relevant venues to vigorously defend and advance U.S. interests.” 34 It has been reported that entities engaged in online counterfeit sales, the unlawful exploitation of copyrighted materials, and other large-scale infringing activity may engage in a combination of “domain name hopping” and “venue shopping” for perceived domain name safe havens. 35 These tactics have been reported within both the gTLD and ccTLD domain name environments. Top Level Domains (TLDs) are those strings of characters that follow the last ‘dot’ in a domain name – for example “.gov” in www.whitehouse.gov. TLDs are typically divided into two categories: generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) and country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs). gTLDs are those TLDs of three or more characters, the operators of which typically have contractual agreements with ICANN. ccTLDs are those TLDs representing two-letter abbreviations for countries and territories, such as .us for the United States or .io for the British Indian Ocean Territory, delegated under policies developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force’s Request For Comment (RFC) 1591. 36 The relationship between any given ccTLD administrator and its government will differ from case to case and may depend on complex and sensitive arrangements particular to the local political climate. Different ccTLD policies will reflect different approaches with respect to process for the suspension, transfer, or cancellation of a domain name registration. Some ccTLDs use the same dispute resolution mechanism as gTLDs do – the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy – while others tailor their own variations of this policy. While the TLD environment provides Internet users with a diversity of choice, operators of websites engaged in illicit IP-based activities exploit this openness. To evade law enforcement, bad actors will register the same or different domain name with different registrars. They then attempt to evade law enforcement by moving from one registrar to another, thus prolonging the so-called “whack-a-mole” pursuit. The result of this behavior is to drive up costs of time and resources spent on protecting intellectual property rights. 37 By way of illustration (FIG. 37), an operator of a large file-sharing site found guilty of facilitating criminal peer-to-peer file sharing of movies, music and games continued to circumnavigate the globe and exploit the domain name environment by moving from ccTLD to ccTLD to evade law enforcement. In the “Notorious Markets” Out-of-Cycle Review, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative lists illustrative markets facilitating counterfeiting and piracy. In the lists from 2013-2015, a total of 26 of 54 named sites, or almost half of named online sites, operate within the ccTLD environment. 38 Based on the most recent Notorious Markets lists available prior to issuance of this plan, ccTLDs comprise roughly half of all named “notorious” top-level domains. 39 Considering that ccTLDs are outnumbered by gTLDs in the domain name base by more than a 2-to-1 ratio, the frequency of bad 68
Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator FIG. 37: Domain Name Hopping: Bad Faith Exploitation of ccTLD Environment. A Journey Around the World: From Sweden to Grenada, with a Dozen Stops in Between. 41 1. Sweden (.se) 2. Greenland (.gl) 3. Iceland (.is) 4. Saint-Martin (.sx) 5. Ascension Island (.ac) 6. Peru (.pe) 7. Guyana (.gy) 8. Montserrat (.ms) 9. South Georgia (.gs) 10. Laos (.la) 11. British Virgin Islands (.vg) 12. Armenia (.am) 13. Mongolia (.mn) 14. Grenada (.gd) faith ccTLD sites appear to be disproportionate in nature and worthy of further research and analysis. 40 ACTION NO. 2.9: Continue to assess the nature of abusive domain name registration tactics and identify opportunities to minimize criminal activity. As part of a multistakeholder process aimed at crime prevention and the protection of public health, safety, and consumer welfare, the U.S DNS Interagency working group will work with the Interagency Strategic Planning Committees on IP Enforcement, to assess the scope of abusive domain name registration tactics and trends, and consider appropriate opportunities to work with stakeholders to curb criminal activity. C. REDUCING ONLINE PIRACY AND COUNTERFEITING BY INCREASING THE ABILITY OF CONSUMERS TO LOCATE CONTENT AND PRODUCTS THROUGH LAWFUL MEANS. Ensuring the existence of, and access to, secure online services and platforms that offer legal content and products is an important part of an effective approach to reducing infringing online activity. Online platforms, however, are subject to a number of challenges and limitations. For example, these providers are subject to abusive tactics themselves when their platforms are used by criminal actors engaged in illicit activity, and are forced to compete with illegitimate providers offering infringing content or platforms through which substandard and counterfeit goods are offered. Efforts to support and enhance the lawful activity in the online ecosystem— from search providers to social media, mobile apps to e-commerce, and others in between—will enable businesses to expand lawful uses of copyrighted content, services, support consumer welfare, and erode rates of counterfeiting and infringing activity online. 1. Support Consumers’ Identification of Websites Offering Legal Goods or Services. A large percentage of Internet transactions begin with a search query. One of the leading search providers, for example, is reported to transact over 100 billion searches per month, which equates to over one trillion searches per year. 42 Search has remained the number one content discovery tool for mobile users. 43 In view of the volume of search engine queries, and the growing number of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take down requests received by search providers each year, search engines have played an increasing role in curbing access to websites used to promote illicit activity. Search companies have recently reported a number of innovations in this space, including: (i) implementing updates to search algorithms in order to “downrank” SECTION 2 69
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U.S. JOINT STRATEGIC PLAN ON INTELL
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B. In Furtherance of a Healthy Doma
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PREAMBLE A Reflection on Creativity
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INTRODUCTION IP-intensive industrie
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Services, the Dep
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • Advertising B
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1 THE GLOBAL SCALE OF INTELLECTUAL
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With thanks to, an
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