An EU-based DNS resolver could be used to block illegal content

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An EU-based DNS resolver could be used to block illegal content

In a document that was made public earlier this month, the European Commission published a call-for proposal for a European government controlled DNS resolver service. The proposal is to protect the privacy of end users and keep them secure by applying filter functions to block malware, phishing and other cyber security threats. The proposal also suggests that the DNS resolver, named DNS 4 EU, should have the capacity to block illegal content.

The Domain Name System DNS is a world-wide, distributed database that maps hard-to- remember ip-addresses to human readable domain names, such asCryptoslate.com. Since the early days of the internet, the DNS system is a fundamental part of the internet infrastructure.

The proposal to develop an EU-based DNS resolver, the part of the DNS system that does the lookup of ip-addresses, is perhaps best viewed through the lens of Europe's efforts to be less dependent on non-european service providers of crucial digital infrastructure, be it cloud services or, as in the case of DNS, global network services.

For many years, this has been a clear and open strategy of the EU, and it is no secret that, for obvious reasons, non-european is a polite way of saying American. In Europe, entire governments basically run on services like Microsoft's Office 365 or AWS, and the EU is not comfortable being in such a dependent position.

The DNS system is no different from Google and Cloudflare, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICANN is the global authority overseeing ip-addresses and domain names, which is ruled by many, and is dominated by the U.S.

The proposal states that DNS 4 EU will provide a high level of resilience, global and EU-specific cybersecurity protection, data protection and privacy, and that personal data will not be monetised.

The DNS resolver is not allowed to monetize user data and must comply with applicable privacy regulations, including the GDPR.

The DNS 4 EU service infrastructure will provide additional optional services, such as free parental control, as well as paid premium services for enhanced performance or security for corporate users, but also be available to internet backbone networks that handle traffic from, and to Europe.

The DNS 4 EU service should provide state-of-the-art protection against cybersecurity threats by blocking malware, phishing, and other threats based on reliable and up to date global threat feeds and own threat feeds developed on the basis of own threat detection and analysis, as well as information exchange with trusted partners e.g. based on EU languages, the corresponding threat detection and analysis infrastructure should be an integral part of the DNS 4 EU service infrastructure and provide a very high level of protection in the EU. The proposal of the European Commission seems to be aimed at blocking illegal content, despite the lack of details at this point in time.

The DNS 4 EU service could be used for filtering URLs leading to illegal content based on legal requirements applicable in the EU or in national jurisdictions e.g. Court orders are in full compliance with EU rules. If the EU decides to ban cryptocurrencies and related services, the above suggests that they can be blocked by DNS 4 EU. It could affect traffic that passes through the Internet backbones that use the DNS resolver at the same time.

There is no way for service providers or end users from using other DNS resolver providers, unless the EU decides to block these as well, which is highly unlikely. The EU's DNS 4 EU can be used as a complement to existing services for those who value EU-based digital infrastructure.