The regulation of abusive activity and content: A study of registries’ terms of service

Abstract

This paper studies the role of domain registries in relation to unlawful or unwanted use of a domain name or the underlying website content. It is an empirical and conceptual contribution to the online content regulation debate, with specific focus on European country code top-level (ccTLD) domain name registries. An analysis of the terms of service of 30 European ccTLD registries shows that one third of the registries contain some use-related provision, which corresponds to approximately 47% of registered domains. The analysis also turns towards examples of notice-and-takedown mechanisms, the emergence of proactive screening and the practice of data validation. Based on the analysis, it calls for more clarity and transparency regarding domain registries’ role in content-or use-related takedowns.