On 13 September 2017, Spanish authorities obtained a court order to seize control of the domain name ‘referendum.cat’ from a Malgrat-based provider. This measure is part of Spanish attempts to prevent a referendum on the status of Catalonia from taking place. The Catalan Government later moved to another website ‘ref1oct.cat’ to disseminate information about the referendum, this time hosted by a provider in Luxembourg.

1.How does the Commission monitor the issue of domain seizures and what are its conclusions?

2.How does the Commission make sure that any policy proposals regarding asset seizure or site blocking in the field of intellectual property enforcement properly assess the consequences of these actions, including the misuse of such tools during the political process?

3.What legal, technological or social projects does the EU sponsor or finance to allow EU citizens to freely disseminate and receive information online?