File formats:

Status:

INFORMATIONAL

Authors:

R. Barnes
A. Cooper
O. Kolkman
D. Thaler
E. Nordmark

Stream:

IAB

Cite this RFC: TXT  |  XML  |   BibTeX

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC7754

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Abstract

The Internet is structured to be an open communications medium. This openness is one of the key underpinnings of Internet innovation, but it can also allow communications that may be viewed as undesirable by certain parties. Thus, as the Internet has grown, so have mechanisms to limit the extent and impact of abusive or objectionable communications. Recently, there has been an increasing emphasis on "blocking" and "filtering", the active prevention of such communications. This document examines several technical approaches to Internet blocking and filtering in terms of their alignment with the overall Internet architecture. When it is possible to do so, the approach to blocking and filtering that is most coherent with the Internet architecture is to inform endpoints about potentially undesirable services, so that the communicants can avoid engaging in abusive or objectionable communications. We observe that certain filtering and blocking approaches can cause unintended consequences to third parties, and we discuss the limits of efficacy of various approaches.

For the definition of Status, see RFC 2026.

For the definition of Stream, see RFC 8729.