Mentions of website blocking are found in the UK-Australia trade agreement

There is a paragraph about website site blocking in the new free trade agreement between Australia and the UK. The trade agreement could set a precedent for other trade agreements with other countries.

Website blocking is one of the solutions to fight piracy. Like most forms of censorship, it was controversial initially but over the past decade it has been increasingly normalized. Several countries, including Australia and the UK, have laws allowing rights holders to request the blocking of piracy sites. Both countries have a list of domains that ISPs should block and the list is regularly updated.

The paragraph states that each country “shall provide that its civil judiciary authorities have the authority to grant an injunction against an ISP within its territory, ordering the ISP to take action to block access to a specific online location.”