Police website takedown rules a threat to business

The rules under which police can request the closure of websites are a liability for UK businesses, online rights campaigners have warned.

Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Police's E-crime Unit (PeCU) trumpeted its success in closing about 2,000 websites accused of selling bogus goods.

But while many of these websites may have been operating illegally, the procedure under which UK internet registrar Nominet closes websites at the behest of the police provides inadequate protection for genuine businesses, Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, told Computing.

"Currently, there are no effective safeguards for website owners," he said. "Law enforcement taking websites down without court orders is wrong, and should not be happening, least of all when no formal procedure is in place."

Nominet has recently closed its consultation on proposals for dealing with domain names used for criminal activities.

However, Killock remains sceptical that the finalised proposals, when these are published, will provide businesses with sufficient means to protect their websites against erroneous takedown requests.

“Some progress has been made, but the discussions are beginning to prove very difficult,” he said.

The sites targeted by the PeCU earlier this week were reportedly offering branded goods from Ugg, Tiffany and Nike at recession-beating prices.

PeCU said the goods being supplied were mostly conterfeit, while many sites had simply taken shoppers' money without supplying anything in return. Other sites had been set up to harvest credit card details, claimed PeCU.