dsnmod
Abstract
Under increasing scrutiny, many web companies now offer bespoke
mechanisms allowing any third party to file complaints (e.g., requesting the de-listing of a URL from a search engine). While this
self-regulation might be a valuable web governance tool, it places
huge responsibility within the hands of these organisations that
demands close examination. We present the first large-scale study
of web complaints (over 1 billion URLs). We find a range of complainants, largely focused on copyright enforcement. Whereas the
majority of organisations are occasional users of the complaint
system, we find a number of bulk senders specialised in targeting
specific types of domain. We identify a series of trends and patterns
amongst both the domains and complainants. By inspecting the
availability of the domains, we also observe that a sizeable portion
go offline shortly after complaints are generated. This paper sheds
critical light on how complaints are issued, who they pertain to and
which domains go offline after complaints are issued.
