Police have taken a new step in fighting piracy online by attempting to cut the money made through advertising on illegal sites. This will be done using an extensive list to keep advertisers aware of who they are buying advertising space from.
It is estimated that piracy websites worldwide earn £137m annually from advertising revenue, which goes on to sustain illegal activity online. Many legitimate brands hire third-party companies to distribute their advertisements which can lead to them inadvertently appearing on illegal websites and supporting piracy if they are unaware of the nature of sites. The Police are compiling the ‘Infringing Website List’ to combat this.
The IWL is a comprehensive list of websites known to distribute copyrighted material, which will be available for third-party advertising companies to cross-reference from, in order to avoid supporting piracy. This means that businesses are no longer associated with illegal downloading and cybercriminals have their funding cut, reducing the revenue earned and the support behind internet piracy.
