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posted by janrinok on Sunday April 15 2018, @04:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-can't dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @10:58AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @10:58AM (#667226)

    And may I ask why are you cutting your visitors in half?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @11:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @11:48AM (#667240)

    Saves on those high bandwidth costs.

  • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:12PM (1 child)

    by theluggage (1797) on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:12PM (#667268)

    As the classic exam answer goes, "The average family has 2.4 children - the .4 is usually a dog."

    • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday April 15 2018, @08:54PM

      by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Sunday April 15 2018, @08:54PM (#667387)

      As the classic exam answer goes, "The average family has 2.4 children - the .4 is usually a dog."

      So .5 must be a dog and a gerbil or such?

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @10:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @10:43PM (#667406)

    "Полтора землекопа" (one and a half digger) is a phraseme in Russian which means a small number of people or an obviously absurd result. It stems from 1965 cartoon "В стране невыученных уроков".