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The Whois public database of domain name registration details is dead.
In a letter [PDF] sent this week to DNS overseer ICANN, Europe's data protection authorities have effectively killed off the current service, noting that it breaks the law and so will be illegal come 25 May, when GDPR comes into force.
The letter also has harsh words for ICANN's proposed interim solution, criticizing its vagueness and noting it needs to include explicit wording about what can be done with registrant data, as well as introduce auditing and compliance functions to make sure the data isn't being abused.
ICANN now has a little over a month to come up with a replacement to the decades-old service that covers millions of domain names and lists the personal contact details of domain registrants, including their name, email and telephone number.
ICANN has already acknowledged it has no chance of doing so: a blog post by the company in response to the letter warns that without being granted a special temporary exemption from the law, the system will fracture.
[...] Critics point out that ICANN has largely brought these problems on itself, having ignored official warnings from the Article 29 Working Party for nearly a decade, and only taking the GDPR requirements seriously six months ago when there has been a clear two-year lead time.
One company that is caught in the middle of the dispute is sanguine about the possible death of the service. "Is this the end of public Whois? Yes, in its current form," CEO of Irish registrar Blacknight, Michele Neylon told us. "But is it going to go completely dark? No."
Neylon has long complained about ICANN's refusal to acknowledge European law when it comes to the Whois service: back in 2013, he refused to sign an updated version of the contract that domain name sellers have with ICANN until it gave him a legal waiver over its data retention requirements.
"That decision probably cost us money, but if we have to choose between operating legally or illegally our path is clear," he wrote in a blog post this week.
(Score: 4, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 15 2018, @05:31AM (7 children)
Obama turned over our Internet to foreigners. To the global special interests. Time to TAKE IT BACK!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday April 15 2018, @08:33AM (6 children)
Well, we would like our jet engines [wikipedia.org] back too. And you remember all those trains that you used to conquer the west and provide your vital communications, well guess what [wikipedia.org]? And those nice radar systems that you use all over the place - they were also invented in Europe [wikipedia.org]. I could go on, but I think you get my drift.
And while you might have invented the internet, the bit that most people know and (incorrectly) refer to as the internet was actually the result of the work of Tim Berners Lee [wikipedia.org].
You might own the infrastructure inside America, but the rest of the world has paid for - and owns - the infrastructure that they contribute. If the USA was disconnected from the internet, then the only content we would probably notice was no longer available would be a lot of porn. Yep, I'll give you that, you do create a lot of porn.
Just because some of the key infrastructure still resides in the USA doesn't make it your internet, nor could those elements not be reconstructed outside the USA.
So, realDonaldTrump, if you are going to be an idiot at least be a factually correct idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @08:51AM (1 child)
"if you are going to be an idiot"
That is what he does here, and he does it well. #parody
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday April 15 2018, @09:02AM
I know, and he used to funny too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @10:02AM
Epic! *ROFL*
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @10:55AM
> So, realDonaldTrump, if you are going to be an idiot at least be a factually correct idiot.
Wouldn't that kind of defeat the entire point of that account's existence?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @06:15PM
Well, since all of Europe's data has to go through Utah, it wouldn't be very difficult to kill their internet completely, and probably most of their phone service too!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Monday April 16 2018, @01:40AM
People don't read the articles. I read the articles sometimes. When I'm not too busy with documents. You must be very busy. Because the article isn't about jets or trains. And it isn't about the Tim Berners-Lee Internet, the websites. It's about the part that does the numbers & addresses. The ICANN DNS. Which used to be ours. America's. But my predecessors -- Bill Clinton, Bush Jr. & Obama -- did a number on us. They put Internet freedom at risk with the intent to cede control to international interests, including countries like China and Russia, which have a long track record of trying to impose online censorship. Congress needs to act, or Internet freedom will be lost for good, since there will be no way to make it great again once it is lost!!!!