German courts seem to be pretty fast, so instead of having to wait weeks or months to see how they'd rule, we've already got the answer. The German court in Bonn has ruled that EPAG (Tucows) is not obliged to collect extra contacts beyond the domain name registrant. The decision, naturally, is in German, but there is a translation into English that we can use to understand how the court arrived at this decision. more
As I noted over the weekend, ICANN has instigated legal action against EPAG, an ICANN accredited registrar based in Germany that is part of the Tucows group. ICANN claims that the case is to "preserve WHOIS data", but Tucows asserts in their statement that the ICANN approach is flawed. It's not a frivolous statement, but one they've backed with fairly detailed rationale - and this is just their public statement and not a formal legal filing. more
Have you ever sold a domain name that was just sitting in your registrar account? Maybe it was for that idea you had, but never found the time to develop. Perhaps it was for a business or website you once ran and then let go by the wayside. Then one day, out of the blue, that dormant domain turned into a winning lottery ticket. You got a random call or email from an interested party and the next thing you know that domain (which you've forgotten why you even renew it each year) is sold for $3,000 or $30,000 or more. more
Last week, several hundred commercial parties involved in the ICANN ecosystem gathered in Vancouver for their annual Global Domains Division (GDD) meeting. Over 600 individuals took part in the meeting which brought together representatives from ICANN's contracted parties. This meeting differs from traditional ICANN meetings as no policy work takes place and discussions are more focused on commercial and operational matters. more
On Friday I was on a surprisingly interesting session at Rightscon 2018 in Toronto about GDPR and WHOIS. The panel consisted of Eleeza Agoopian from ICANN staff; Avri Doria who was recently appointed to the ICANN board; Elliot Noss who runs large registrar Tucows; Stephanie Perrin who has done a lot of privacy work for the Canadian government and as an ICANN volunteer, and me; Milt Mueller, who is now at Georgia Tech, moderated. more
GDPR. It's the four-letter "word" everyone is talking about, and there are lots of questions still swirling around the topic. We wanted to provide a summary of where we are and what we believe the next ten days will bring... GDPR enforcement will begin May 25, 2018. After this date, those found in violation of the regulation can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or 20 Million Euros, whichever is greater. more
Late last week, ICANN published the guidance from the Article 29 Working Party (WP29) that we have been waiting for. Predictably, WP29 took a privacy maximalist approach to the question of how Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to WHOIS, a tool widely used by cybersecurity professionals, businesses, intellectual property owners, consumer protection agencies and others to facilitate a safer and more secure internet. more
Well, here we are on Friday the 13th and I couldn't think of a better way to spend the day than providing an update on GDPR, WHOIS and ICANN. There's lots to cover, so let's dive right in. As we have been talking about for a number of months now, the EU's new General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) will become enforceable on May 25th. The ICANN community has been struggling with how GDPR will impact the WHOIS system. more
We've talked about the conflicts between our ICANN contract and privacy law in the past. Not once, not twice, but multiple times. We refused to sign the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) with ICANN until we'd received a data retention waiver. That decision probably cost us money, but if we have to choose between operating legally or illegally our path is clear. more
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today we remember that the Nazis rounded up Jews, Roma, political dissidents, and other "undesirables" using the best data and technology of the day and sent them off to concentration camps. We don't normally deal with this type of political reality in ICANN, but now is the time to do so. In 1995, the recently formed European Union passed the EU Data Protection Directive. more
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