Jon Garfunkel sets up on Civilities an innovative project addressing a protocol for online abuse reporting, shortly called PONAR. It is all based on the observation that the new web architecture, with a higher-level content and workflow standards, can take a step further the process of complaint management.

In the past, online abuse consisted mainly in flooding networks with unsolicited commercial emails (spamming). The only way a petitioner could act against abuse was to contact the administrator of an Internet service or website and wait to get an answer. Still, with the growth of the web, the cyberspace was populated with new species of online abuse, like interpersonal torts (harassment, stalking, and exploitation) and intellectual property menaces (concerning copyright and trademark). In these evolving conditions, email alone becomes outdated and ineffective in handling complaints.

The new approach benefits from two leading advantages: well-formed data by the petitioner, so a third party involvement is no longer necessary, and the database storage capabilities that a structured format carries within, making possible its submission to careful analysis. This way, a public pressure can be generated by community members, advertisers, or other press institutions, and a slow administrator or publisher is forced to respond to complaints.

Trying to compensate for disadvantages of the old course of action in an online harassment case (relatively high cost of legal engagement, or inefficacy in getting publisher’s commitment and unsafe exposure of the aggrieved party when it comes to direct communication), the design of the new protocol engages a flexible proxy role, jurisdiction-based determination of the law enforcement agency, communications exchange management, potential evidence flagging, selective publicity of information. The system behind the protocol should be financially sustained by a fee policy for registering and addressing plaintiffs.

It is also offered an example of complaint form, detailed protocol architecture data and a list of potentially interested actors, invited to participate and endorse the project.

Jon Garfunkel sets up on Civilities an innovative project addressing a protocol for online abuse reporting, shortly called PONAR. It is all based on the observation that the new web architecture, with a higher-level content and workflow standards, can take a step further the process of complaint management.
In the past, online abuse consisted mainly in [...]