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ICANN chief begs privacy watchdogs for Whois advice

Kevin Murphy, March 28, 2018, 09:15:50 (UTC), Domain Policy

ICANN CEO Goran Marby has written to the data protection authorities of all 28 European Union states, along with the European Data Protection Supervisor, to ask for guidance on how to implement new privacy laws.
Marby also asked the DPAs about the possibility of an enforcement moratorium, to give the domain industry and ICANN more time to formulate their collective response to the General Data Protection Regulation.
GDPR, which aims to give EU citizens more control over their personal data, comes into full effect May 25. Companies that break the rules face fines that could amount to millions of euros.
But ICANN does not yet have a firm plan for bringing the distributed Whois system into compliance with GDPR, and has repeatedly indicated that it needs guidance from European DPAs.
“ICANN and more than a thousand of the domain names registries and registrars are at a critical juncture,” Marby wrote (pdf).
“We need specific guidance from European data protection authorities in order to meet the needs of the global internet stakeholder community, including governments, privacy authorities, law enforcement agencies, intellectual property holders, cybersecurity experts, domain name registries, registrars, registrants and ordinary internet users,” he wrote.
ICANN has already written a proposal — known as the “Cookbook” and sent to DPAs three weeks ago — for how gTLD registrars and registries could comply with GDPR by removing most fields from public Whois records.
But Marby’s letter points out that many ICANN community members think the Cookbook either goes too far or not far enough.
As we reported a week ago, the Governmental Advisory Committee and Intellectual Property Constituency are not convinced ICANN needs to chop quite as much info from the public Whois as it’s currently planning.
But on the flipside, there are privacy advocates who think far less data should be collected on registrants and fundamentally question ICANN’s power to mandate public Whois access in its registry and registrar contracts.
Both sides of the debate are referenced in the letter.
“Guidance from DPAs on ICANN’s plan of action as presented in the Cookbook, and in particular, the areas where there are competing views, is critical as soon as possible, but particularly during the next few weeks,” Marby wrote.
Whether ICANN will get the answers it needs on the timetable it needs them is open to debate.
Many community members expressed skepticism about whether the DPAs’ commitment to the urgency of the issue matches ICANN’s own, during ICANN 61 earlier this month.
There seemed to be little confidence that the DPAs’ responses, should ICANN receive any, will provide the clarity the industry needs.
It may also be bad timing given the unrelated Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal, which appears to be consuming the attention of some European DPAs.

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Comments (2)

  1. Frank Michlick says:
    March 28, 2018 at 12:52 pm

    You mean after years of ignoring comments and feedback from the privacy community, they now need their help?

    Reply
    • Mark Thorpe says:
      March 28, 2018 at 2:54 pm

      Exactly! Plus, Ignoring the whole domain community’s input on whois privacy.
      They were and still are, too busy trying to make money off of the domain Industry, Instead of doing the job they were put there to do, to oversee the domain Industry and protect it’s rights.

      Reply

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