After blocking scammers and online predators, PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) intend to curb piracy in the country, using the same capability. What the PLDT Group does to block illegal sites can be extended to prevent the spread of illegal copies of copyrighted materials, PLDT and Smart's Chief Information Security Officer Angel T. Redoble announced Tuesday, April 11. "We can block on the domain level, just as we can block on the content level," he confirmed. Already, PLDT has blocked more than one billion attempts to access child sexual abuse and exploitation-related materials (CSAEM), in addition to scamming and phishing websites. "This anti-piracy campaign won't be different. You can just send the site that you want us to block. If it's a site that is focused mainly on piracy, then we can block the whole domain," Redoble explained. "However, when there's content that violates anti-piracy regulations uploaded on a legitimate site, we cannot block the entire site, because we can be accused of denial of service, or preventing legitimate users from accessing a legitimate site," he pointed out. "In cases like this, we can still block on the content level." Overall, Philippine internet users registered more than 564 million visits to music piracy sites between 2020 and 2021, according to data fromthe International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
On the other hand, evideo piracy in the Philippines has grown to 20 million users in 2022 with revenue leakage of US$781 million. However, blocking (both illegal websites and content) is reactive, it's not sustainable, Redoble conceded. "After blocking, it is likely that cybercriminals will just move to another site. There has to be a sustainable way of doing it." Currently, they are testing a capability called the Global Chain of Trust (GCT) to create a cleaner, safer, and more resilient digital ecosystem.
"We created this against phishing, scamming and CSAEM. Now, it can also be applied to piracy websites."