Time Barred ICANN Releases Temporary WHOIS Specs Plan for GDPR Compliance as Deadline Looms

ICANN has finally published an interim European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Whois safety net called Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data in a last minute bit to ensure that WHOIS is GDPR compliant all the while maintaining the existing WHOIS system to the greatest extent possible. The plan is subject to further revision prior …

Organic GDPR Related Searches have spiked and so are Paid Cost Per Clicks

The deadline for the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation compliance is fast approaching, resulting in increased searches for the acronym “GDPR” on Google’s search engine. This organic search increase has prompted companies like Adobe and IBM — which offer consulting services — to buy up search terms, driving up the price of keywords. Since …

NTIA’s David Redl asks ICANN to review GoDaddy’s blocking access to Whois records

The U.S. government has sent a letter to ICANN asking it to review GoDaddy’s (NYSE: GDDY) activities around blocking access to Whois records. Through David Redl, who heads the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, sent the letter to ICANN’s board today asking it to look into the matter. The timing is strange because, coming in …

European Commission suggests Police could soon have restricted WHOIS access

The European Commission has suggested that law enforcement authorities could soon have restricted access to the WHOIS database that identifies website owners because the system is on a collision course with the EU’s strict new data protection law. Law enforcement authorities have complained to the Commission about plans to change the system in May because …

Internet Pioneer Paul Vixie says ICANN’s job is to serve the public, not caving in to demands from the companies

Dr Paul Vixie, a pioneer of the internet’s domain name system (DNS), has lashed out at the creation of hundreds of new top-level domains, ranging from .dog to .horse, and .cool to .porn, labelling them a money grab and a mistake. Vixie was speaking at the Ruxcon information security conference in Melbourne on Sunday about …

Whois : Domain Name Privacy May Soon Become History

If you’ve registered any Web domains for your small business, there’s a potential privacy policy change of which you should be aware. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considering changing a policy involving WHOIS, a database of personal information for those who register domain names. Currently, domain owners can choose to use …

ICANN stifles a privacy advocate’s dissent

The Internet Governance Project (IGP) writes: ICANN’s Expert Working Group (EWG) on Whois and privacy, which published its final report today, has unfortunately continued a long tradition of failing to find consensus between privacy advocates and business interests. The business interests see coerced publication of domain name registration data as an invaluable aid to brand protection and law enforcement, …