In the Netherlands, fraudulent webshops are to be taken off
Thu 5. Dec 2024, 20:37
The Dutch SIDN has announced that in future it will close every fake webshop immediately and without further investigation if a request is received from the Police National Internet Fraud Desk (LMIO). ‘If, on the basis of their expertise, the police say ‘This webshop is a fake and people are being scammed,’ we want to accept their judgement and take appropriate action, preferably right away,’ explains Chiel van Spaandonk, abuse specialist at the .nl administrator. Rapid intervention is very important because every hour that a criminal webshop remains online claims more victims. The pilot project is initially scheduled to run for one year. There is said to be an urgent need for action, as the number of counterfeit webshops is said to have risen from 16,000 in 2023 to 20,000 or more in 2024. SIDN has had a similar agreement with the Reporting Hotline for Internet Child Pornography for several years. However, this is the first time that SIDN has officially recognised an external organisation as a ‘trusted flagger’. LMIO promises to always thoroughly investigate every fraud report, with a focus on registration data. ‘For instance, we can see whether a registrant has registered lots of other domain names as well,’ says Gijs van der Linden, Team Leader at LMIO. It is crucial that the dual control principle is always observed before a report is made.