Hello all, As mentioned on Monday's NARALO call I have published the results of a months-long study of how various U.S.-based ICANN contracted parties handle reports of domains engaged in narcotics traffic. The specific narcotics here are opioids which are synthetic versions of morphine often mixed with other chemicals or time-release mechanisms. Abuse of narcotics is a global problem, but has been particularly sharp here in the U.S. in the last few year. Cybercriminals respond to news and have become aggressively predatory in offering a variety of illicit substances on different domains. In simple terms KnujOn collected illegal opioid selling domains and reported them in detail to registries, registrars, and ISPs. The illegal nature of these domains is particular to U.S. law so only U.S.-based companies were measured here. I may release a report later focusing on different regions and laws. The public report is here: http://knujon.com/onlineopioidsUSfeb2017.pdf I have blogged about the report on CircleID: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20170215_narcotics_traffic_is_not_part_of_a_he... Aside from the seriousness of the issue as an abuse of the DNS, the problem from our perspective is the response from some providers in terms of policy. The good news is that MOST of the contracted parties and ISPs simply reviewed the domains against their policies and then quickly terminated them. The bad news is that some Ry/Rg incorrectly claimed the "ICANN contract prevented them from acting", that they did not have "the technical ability to suspend domains", or that they "could not find evidence of illegal activity". One domain became "hidden" after we reported it to the registrar but continues to sell Fentanyl, a very dangerous drug. This is ultimately about failure of policy. These parties are making a choice not to investigate or suspend. -Garth -- Garth Bruen gbruen@knujon.com