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Registrars want six-month stay on new Whois policy

Registrars representing the majority of the gTLD industry want ICANN to withhold the ban hammer for six months on its new temporary Whois policy.
As I reported earlier today, ICANN has formally approved an unprecedented Temporary Policy that seeks to bring the Whois provisions of its contracts into compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
It comes into effect next Friday, May 25, but it contains a fair few items that will likely take longer for registrars to implement.
While ICANN’s top lawyer has indicated that ICANN Compliance will act as reasonably as possible about enforcing the new policy, registrars want a moratorium of at least six months.
In a letter (pdf) dated May 16 (before the policy was voted through, but while its contents were broadly known), Registrar Stakeholder Group chair Graeme Bunton wrote:

Any temporary specification adopted now that significantly deviates from previously held expectations and models will be far too late for us to accommodate for a May 25, 2018 implementation date.
For this reason, we ask that any temporary specification include a formal ICANN compliance moratorium, not shorter than six (6) months, providing us an opportunity to conform, to the extent possible, our GDPR implementation with the GDPR-compliant aspects of any ICANN temporary specification

He added that some registrars may need even more time, so they should have the right ask for an extension if necessary.
The letter is signed by Endurance, GoDaddy, Tucows, Blacknight, 1&1, United Domains, NetEarth One and Cloudflare, which together account for most gTLD domains.