An abuse report is a complaint to a hosting provider, domain registrar, CDN or email provider that its service is being used for phishing, fraud, malware or other illegal activity.
Infrastructure providers publish acceptable-use or abuse policies and abuse contacts for this purpose. Under the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement, ICANN-accredited registrars must keep an abuse contact and take reasonable and prompt steps to investigate and respond to abuse reports. Since April 2024, ICANN contracts also require registrars and registries to take mitigation action when they have actionable evidence that a domain is being used for DNS abuse: malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, or spam used to deliver them.
Hosts and CDNs act under their own terms and, where they apply, laws such as the DMCA or the EU Digital Services Act. A CDN usually does not host the site itself; it may forward the complaint to the hosting provider and, for some report types, tell the reporter who that provider is.
In practice
Abuse reports work when they reach the right provider with evidence that fits its policy: the full URLs, screenshots, dates and, for phishing, the brand being imitated. Identify the host through IP and DNS lookups and the registrar through RDAP or WHOIS data. A registrar can suspend a domain even when the host does not act, and country-code domains (.uk, .de, .it and others) are governed by their national registries' rules rather than ICANN contracts.
Source: ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement §3.18 ↗
Related removals
- Website takedown — $3,000 per site, pay on success
- Brand protection — Custom engagement, pay on success
Related terms
- Website takedown — A website takedown is the removal of an unlawful website through the lawful channels of its hosting provider, domain registrar, CDN and search engines.
- Phishing — Phishing is a fraud in which attackers impersonate a trusted brand or person, by email, text or a fake website, to trick people into handing over passwords, payment details or money.
- DMCA takedown — A DMCA takedown is a notice under US copyright law asking a host, platform or search engine to remove material that infringes a copyright you own or are authorised to enforce.
- Takedown notice — A takedown notice is a formal written request asking a platform, host or search engine to remove specific content because it breaks the law or the provider's own rules.