Starting nearly a decade ago, the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO ) launched a plan to cut off revenue streams to pirate sites.

WIPO is well-respected internationally and part of the United Nations, which ensured cooperation from a wide variety of countries.

In 2019, WIPO launched an advertising blocklist that lets member states flag infringing sites. This list can then be shared with advertisers, who can use it to make sure that revenues don’t end up going to these sites.

This “WIPO Alert” system has been running for years with thousands of domain names being added. While it still functions today, WIPO has quietly been working on a new “WIPO Alert Pay” system that targets the payment services that counterfeit and pirate sites rely on.

WIPO Alert Pay

At the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement session in Geneva this month, WIPO’s Todd Reeves described it as the next iteration of the same follow-the-money approach. While it is not publicly announced yet, Reeves presented the setup and results of the initial pilot.

WIPO Alert Pay relies on voluntary cooperation between rightsholders and payment service providers (PSPs), such as Mastercard and PayPal. Rightsholders can use the alert system to flag instances where pirate sites use their payment services, for subscriptions or VIP access for example.

Rightsholders have to supply required information, which is checked by WIPO for completeness before a domain name enters the system. The PSPs can then decide what action, if any, to take against the merchant’s account under their own terms and conditions.

Report, Check, Notify, List

As with the advertising blocklist, WIPO stresses that its role is limited. It hosts the platform, receives the flagged sites, and aggregates the results for the PSPs. According to Reeves, it makes no infringement determinations of its own.

“We’re not making any infringement determinations. We’re simply securely hosting the platforms,” Reeves said.

“We receive the list of the flagged sites by the right holders and verify that the required information and attestations are provided for the flagged sites. So it’s more of a formalities check than anything else.”

The process runs on a notice-and-review timer. Rightsholders first notify the site owners. If there is no response after three working days, WIPO steps in to send a second notice. If another three working days pass without a response, the site is added to the WIPO Alert Pay list and the payment providers take it from there.

71% of Flagged Listings Removed

The new Alert Pay system ran as a manual pilot from November 2024 to August 2025. Six unnamed rights holders took part, together with two payment providers.

Over that period, WIPO processed 17 actions covering 35 sites of concern. Reeves said 71% of the flagged listings were removed, and that all participants reviewed the system positively and that it was ready to scale.

The slide below, which was shown by Reeves, specifically notes that “broad adoption could be highly disruptive.”

The pilot also uncovered that some sites were displaying a Mastercard or PayPal logo without actually offering those services, presumably to signal trustworthiness.

The mention of Mastercard and PayPal is notable, especially since these two providers are also named in the system’s online forms. This doesn’t make it hard to guess who the two unnamed payment providers were that participated in the pilot.

From Pilot to Platform

With the pilot closed, WIPO is now working on finalizing the development. A software engineer has spent the past few months turning the manual workflow into an automated platform, which Reeves said is close to completion.

The platform already covers PayPal and Mastercard, but WIPO wants to add support for more providers to broaden the coverage. After that, the system will be promoted to rightsholders and their representatives, as well as the member states.

To get more information on the system, TorrentFreak reached out to WIPO two weeks ago, but the organization has yet to reply to our request for comment. However, it is expected that more information will come out when the official launch of WIPO Alert Pay is near.

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The update on WIPO Alert Pay was presented at the 18th session of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement on June 4, 2026. The supporting slide deck was not publicly available at the time of writing. All quotes and screenshots used in this article were pulled from the meeting’s webcast.

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