[Info] German Court Rules on ICANN Request to Preserve WHOIS Data

Thu May 31 08:37:13 EEST 2018

Hi All,

Good news! Yesterday, the German Court ruled for EPAG, the 
Germany-based, ICANN-accredited registrar owned by Tucows.  The 
following is posted on ICANN's website today:

"ICANN asked the Court to intervene after learning that EPAG no longer 
intended to collect such data, citing the GDPR law implementation as its 
rationale. ICANN had long required full WHOIS data to be collected, and 
was requiring registrars such as EPAG to continue to collect the data 
after the GDPR went into full effect. ICANN modified its requirements 
surrounding how others could access this data, limiting access only to 
those who could demonstrate a legitimate purpose (such as in cases of 
criminal activity, intellectual property infringement or Internet 
Security problems). Assessing and identifying a legitimate purpose is a 
requirement identified in the GDPR.

"In rejecting the injunctive relief, the Court ruled that it would not 
require EPAG to collect the adminsitrative and technical data for new 
registrations. However, the Court did not indicate in its ruling that 
collecting such data would be a violation of the GDPR. Rather, the Court 
said that the collection of the domain name registrant data should 
suffice in order to safeguard against misuse the security aspects in 
connection with the domain name (such as criminal activity, infringement 
or security problems).

"The Court reasoned that because it is possible for a registrant to 
provide the same data elements for the registrant as for the 
administrative and technical contacts, ICANN did not demonstrate that it 
is necessary to collect additional data elements for those contacts. The 
Court also noted that a registrant could consent and provide 
administrative and technical contact data at its discretion."

https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-4-2018-05-30-en

Best, Kathy

On 5/31/2018 4:55 AM, Ayden Férdeline wrote:
> I suspect - and this is me being generous in my speculation - that 
> ICANN knows their legal strategy is misguided and incorrect, but they 
> are facing political pressure on the domestic front. The NTIA 
> Administrator David Redl has called ICANN out a few times in speeches 
> for not preserving the WHOIS status quo, so I suspect lawsuits like 
> this one are done partly to placate the US government. However I do 
> think arrogance, incompetence, and a lack of awareness of what exactly 
> the European Union is and what its regulations are is also playing a 
> part in the actions being advanced by ICANN org.
>
> Ayden
>
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> On 31 May 2018 10:45 AM, Giuseppe De Francesco 
> <defrancescog at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I've been a silent reader until now because GDPR jurisprudence is 
>> still building up, and my daily GDPR compliance work doesn't qualify 
>> me to argue with a bunch of lawyers, but this is getting off track, 
>> and I feel that it is time to chime in. There is enough knowledge 
>> about Data Protection (DP) expressed via Article 29 Working Party 
>> (A29WP) over the years to clear issues like this without even having 
>> to talk about it.
>>
>> The only problem I see here is about culture. USA vs EU cultural gap. 
>> To any EU person, Whois has always been borderline illegal, but we 
>> didn't have any law like the GDPR yet. Therefore, we had to keep it 
>> to ourselves. Meanwhile, Americans made a lot of money by monetising 
>> the Right to Privacy offering Whois protection as a domain add-on. 
>> It's just as shameful as monetising public water.
>>
>> Now we have the GDPR coming into force after two years grace period 
>> (I define those "2 years of denial"), and everybody tries to find a 
>> loophole in the GDPR to get away with DP violations. Well, let me 
>> break this to you guys: there aren't any loopholes, just accept this 
>> fact and move on. Google Spain ruling 
>> (http://bit.ly/GoogleSpainRuling) should have clarified that in the 
>> EU we have a different approach to DP. If Google got kicked before 
>> the GDPR, do you think that now is the time to look for loopholes? 
>> Please...
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Pino
>>
>>
>>
>> On 31 May 2018 at 08:23, valentina hvale pellizzer 
>> <valentina at oneworldplatform.net 
>> <mailto:valentina at oneworldplatform.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     Well
>>
>>     I know will sound foolish but why would be staff accountability
>>     off the table? than what is the sense of all these committee,
>>     consultations, working groups, big transitions, big policies.
>>
>>     Find it very depressing and exploitive
>>
>>     hvale
>>
>>
>>     On 05/31/2018 09:13 AM, Ayden Férdeline wrote:
>>>     It was a very strange legal strategy that ICANN employed. Now
>>>     that it has failed, I wonder what action ICANN org will take
>>>     next -- I presume staff accountability for mishandling the
>>>     issue, and putting forward such questionable advice, is off the
>>>     table, but what's plan D? What will finally give ICANN org the
>>>     "clarity" it so desperately craves?
>>>
>>>     "WhileICANNappreciates the prompt attention the Court paid to
>>>     this matter, the Court's ruling today did not provide the
>>>     clarity thatICANNwas seeking when it initiated the injunction
>>>     proceedings," said John Jeffrey,ICANN's General Counsel and
>>>     Secretary.
>>>
>>>     —Ayden
>>>
>>>
>>>     ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>>>     On 31 May 2018 6:14 AM, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM>
>>>     <mailto:rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>>
>>>>     Hi all,
>>>>     you can find here the update on litigation initiated by ICANN
>>>>     https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-4-2018-05-30-en
>>>>     <https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-4-2018-05-30-en>. the
>>>>     court rejected injunction requested by ICANN.
>>>>
>>>>     Best Regards,
>>>>
>>>>     Rafik
>>>
>>>
>>
>>     -- 
>>     valentina pellizzer
>>     President
>>     One World Platform
>>
>>     https://oneworldplatform.net/
>>
>>     mobile: +387 (0)61 484 038
>>     twitter: @froatosebe
>>
>>     Fingerprint 30AA 9445 D878 A6C9 FE41 E90D 52A5 36A6 B249 EDA9
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> <https://about.me/pinodefrancesco?promo=email_sig&utm_source=product&utm_medium=email_sig&utm_campaign=gmail_api&utm_content=thumb>
>> 	
>>
>> Giuseppe (Pino) De Francesco
>> about.me/pinodefrancesco 
>> <https://about.me/pinodefrancesco?promo=email_sig&utm_source=product&utm_medium=email_sig&utm_campaign=gmail_api&utm_content=thumb>
>>
>

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