Globe Telecom Inc. has blocked 404,730 malicious sites for the first nine months of the year, which is a 45 percent increase this year compared to the 278,555 blocked links last year.

These sites content include child pornography, illegal gambling, online piracy, and other malicious materials that have been filtered in the network’s mobile and broadband services.

Around 397,637 of the blocked sites were uniform resource links (URLs), and 4,795 domains, according to Globe’s data from January to September 2023.

Notably, 2,298 of the barred domains contained child pornography.

Solely for the third quarter of the year, blocked sites rose by 70.8 percent to 267,985 from 156,857 in 2022. 

Globe Chief Information Security Officer Anton Bonifacio assured the public of the firm’s commitment to creating a safe online environment.

“We recognize the critical role we play in combating illegal online activities, especially those that exploit the most children. Our increased efforts and investments in blocking access to illegal content are a testament to our dedication to this cause,” he said.  

The telco giant has invested around $2.7 million for filtering systems designed to identify and block online content related to child pornography, illegal gambling, and online piracy.

It also continues to implement its #MakeITSafePH campaign, initially launched in 2017, to complement the national government’s policies to combat online sexual abuse and exploitation of children.