Russian Anti-virus to Filter Pirate Portals

Popular Russian anti-virus software Dr.
Web has recently introduced a new feature preventing Internet users from accessing allegedly copyright infringing websites.
The company is accepting takedown requests from rights owners and is responding by blocking access to pirated content when claims are proved legitimate.

Many years ago the anti-piracy outfits like the RIAA and MPAA started warning people not to visit The Pirate Bay and other websites providing access to pirated content.
They claim that such services pose a threat to the public, and Russian anti-virus company Dr. Web follows their recommendations.

Dr. Web, whose anti-virus products are installed on millions of computers across the globe, has added a new feature to its package that allows blocking copyright-infringing files.
It is included in the latest release of Dr. Web 9.0 and is recognized as the first of its kind.
Unlike blocklists created by other entities, Dr. Web’s database of pirate sites is built based on reports from rights owners.
Those submit takedown notices to the company, and Dr. Web will then block access to the websites if the claims hold up.
Dr. Web’s CEO sees the new feature as a natural extension of anti-virus products.
He explained that their products have a built-in web-filtering system, and can easily block websites. It is not a secret that in the parental control module many malicious URLs have been blocked for a while now.

The new feature allows to not just prevent piracy, but also to minimize security risks for users.
The company believes that copyright protection is not only about blocking some URLs – actually, the new feature is in the line of anti-virus main functionality, because it warns Internet users about possible fraud when they access a copyright-infringing portal.
Dr. Web explains that ordinary users are sometimes unable to distinguish infringing files from legitimate ones, and this may cause all kinds of troubles.

A number of rights holders have already submitted takedown requests to the company recently, and more are going to do the same in the near future.
Nevertheless, Dr. Web says it will not necessarily block all pirated material. The company has just launched the service and confirms that there are some rights owners who asked to block infringing websites.

Dr. Web points out that it isn’t their main goal to block as many websites as possible – they just want to inform rights owners that there’s such a service for them.
The company emphasized that URLs would only be added to the database upon request from copyright owners, and Dr. Web team won’t use algorithms to detect and block infringing material, like McAfee recently suggested.

Rights owners interested in the feature can send requests to Dr. Web through its Brand Protection page. As for the Internet users who prefer an unfiltered Internet, they have an option to disable this feature manually.
Perhaps, other anti-virus vendors will follow this example in the future.