Federal authorities have pledged to take action after an internet domain assigned to a remote Australian territory descended into a haven for child sexual abuse material.
The .cc domain, which is geographically assigned to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands but managed by United States tech giant Verisign, has appeared on watchlists for child exploitation over the past decade.
Figures released by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) last week list .cc as the ninth most abused top level domain in 2022 for hosting child sexual abuse material.
In 2016 it was in the top five.
The Shire of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (SCKI) has been working with the Commonwealth, Australian Federal Police and Verisign to clean up the territory's top-level domain, with hopes it will remedy a great blight on the tropical islands' reputation.
Chief executive Frank Mills said efforts to remove the extremely disturbing material from .cc were expected to take place over the coming weeks.
"There's complete abhorrence over child exploitation or child sexual abuse material that's hosted on any domain," he said.
"It's very crucial as far as I'm concerned to be able to deal with it and clean up .cc so that, when issues are identified, we're able to deal with them swiftly, efficiently and have them disrupted and removed from the public domain."
A complex internet history
The external territory, about 2,700 kilometres north-west of Perth, was given its own internet domain name in the 1980s — about the same time Australia was designated its .au code.
The licence for the domain eventually wound up in the hands of US businessman Brian Cartnell, who established a business selling .cc domain names.
He told a US senate committee investigating the issue in 2001 that his company had spent a significant amount of money on projects to benefit the islands in return for the domain.
Verisign later took it over.
The domain has had a chequered past, including being used by offshore gambling websites and appearing on spam and child exploitation watchlists.
Multiple criminal referrals
Mr Mills said SCKI had referred .cc domains with unlawful material to the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
It was also working closely with Verisign to develop a new agreement that spelt out the rights and obligations of all parties.
"I am confident as we move forward, we will have a process that once child exploitation and child sexual abuse material is identified, our strategic alliance will be able to disrupt the site efficiently and expediently," Mr Mills said.
He believed this content had damaged the islands' reputation.
"It certainly doesn't paint the Cocos in a pretty light, and it's extremely unfortunate that this situation hasn't been dealt with in the past, but we're all about rebuilding our reputation," Mr Mills said.
Calls for government intervention
Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) in 2021 called on the federal government to regulate or reclaim .cc, saying child sexual abuse material had flourished unabated on the domain.
Dr James Mortensen from ANU's National Security College said the brokering of a new agreement between the SCKI, Verisign and the Commonwealth was a good sign that historic problems surrounding .cc were being taken seriously.
"If the new agreement is to be effective, I think clear lines of responsibility and accountability, especially regarding the removal of illegal material, need to be drawn," he said.
Dr Mortensen said Australia had other domains with a better track record — .au being the obvious example.
"We can look to these domains to give a blueprint for how we might proceed to make sure that this issue doesn't keep popping up," he said.
A spokesperson for Verisign confirmed it had been in contact with the IWF and Australian authorities about .cc and was monitoring the situation closely.
"While no registry can prevent bad actors from registering addresses, we continue to make major strides to combat child sexual abuse material and to help make the domains we operate inhospitable to those who deal in illegal material," he said.
"We know this work is never done, and will continue to work closely with IWF, our other child protection partners, and Australian authorities to address this issue."
Internet Watch Foundation chief executive Susie Hargreaves said there was still a lot of work to be done to eradicate such horrific imagery from platforms around the world.
"We cannot ever forget that every image contains a child who has been irrevocably harmed by a sexual predator," she said.
"The effects of child sexual abuse continue to haunt survivors throughout their lives, and we must do our utmost to ensure their suffering is not unnecessarily prolonged by images of their abuse circulating on the internet."
An AFP spokesperson confirmed the partnership and said it was committed to stopping child exploitation and abuse.
Anyone with information about people involved in child abuse and exploitation is urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit www.accce.gov.au/report.
If you know abuse is happening or a child is at risk, call police immediately on triple-0.
