How Risky are Piracy Websites for Indonesians? The Role of Search

Abstract

Recent research indicates that users of rogue websites face significant risks, since much of the advertising has the potential to cause harm to users. This type of advertising is called risk, and includes ads from the sex industry, gambling, malware and scams. Some studies have focused on naming and shaming mainstream advertisers on rogue sites (Taplin, 2013), and there are significant numbers of these advertisers in Asia, placing ads through ad networks that focus on local language and local content. A number of studies have recently investigated the role played by mainstream internet advertising in supporting the revenue of rogue websites. Such advertising by household names – including multinational corporations, governments and charities – generates enormous profit margins for operators of these websites.However, the advertisements which have the potential to cause the greatest harm are also those which are forbidden under Islamic jurisprudence. While vigilance against these harms is often promoted within the physical environment in Indonesia (eg, Jakarta Post, 2014), policing the online environment to protect citizens from haram activities (Assyaukanie, 2009) may be more challenging.A first step in understanding the risk to users is to measure the prevalence of such material. Recent studies have measured the scale of the problem in the Asia-Pacific region, including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Generally speaking, the pattern seems to be that high risk advertisers tend to target those sites which are promoting Hollywood content in English, whereas mainstream advertisers tend to promote their goods and services on local language sites, with local content.The goal of this study was to measure the problem in Indonesia. A sample of 1,000 webpages from rogue sites was downloaded and analysed, to reveal the prevalence of both mainstream and high-risk advertising. The sample was derived from expert opinions as well as the use of a snowball technique to generate a list of sites using vocabulary terms linked to illegal downloading. Snowball sampling replicates the path taken by users as they search for infringing content by using search engines. It also acts as a proxy measure for popularity, since the most relevant search terms are always returned by ranking. Analysis of the data reveals that 16.05% of the ads were mainstream, and 83.95% were high-risk, of which 75% were gambling ads. The level of gambling advertising was unprecedented and not observed in any other country. The results are discussed in the context of policing the online environment with regard to Indonesian social policy.