Post GDPR gTLD Transfers

Posted on 17 April 2018

Update: 25-05-2018

The procedure below is now live as per the ICANN temporary spec. I observe that not every Registrar was aware of the below situation. If you cannot transfer out your domain name(s) advise the gaining registrar to stop parsing WHOIS data and trying to send FOA emails to the registrant or admin contact, this will no longer work.

 

The new procedure has been communicated last week by ICANN to all registrars. To view this communication click here,

 

 

As mentioned in a previous blog the WHOIS will change drastically over the next few weeks.

At …

The ICANN WHOIS system is gone, the process for a GDPR compliant WHOIS has started!

Posted on 12 April 2018

 

After twelve months of endless discussions and a looming deadline, ICANN received information from the Art 29 Working Party. 

The EU Data Protection Authorities will not grant ICANN forbearance regarding the May 25th deadline when it comes to the WHOIS. Again the DPA’s re-confirmed their advise towards ICANN and does not deviate much from the advice they have provided ICANN since 2000.

The full press release from ICANN and the Article 29 WP letter can be read here.

Now that it is official there will be no forbearance regarding WHOIS, which was a silly request to begin with, …

Realtime Register GDPR TLD matrix is now public.

Posted on 9 April 2018

Last week we received a lot of positive comments regarding our GDPR TLD matrix. And we had a lot of requests to get access to the matrix.
As a push to create more GDPR awareness, we decided to publish our API on the website for the public, including the GDPR TLD matrix.

You can enter the matrix here.

Keep in mind the matrix has been developed with the Realtime Register processes in mind and in some instances cannot be merely be pasted and copied.

One comment which we received a lot last week was:”wow there are so many …

Data Protection/GDPR TLD Guidance Matrix

Posted on 4 April 2018

I think this is the first blog where I start with phrases like;

  • We are not done yet
  • Guidance only
  • We are not done yet
  • By no means legal advise
  • Best effort only
  • We are not done yet

While we are not done, we are trying to get this matrix as complete as possible before May 25; we do expect that we will still be updating the matrix way beyond May 25.

Back in 2016, I was under the impression that our industry would work together and come up with solutions to make things easier when it comes to the …

Berlin Group to ICANN, WHOIS is not your only GDPR problem

Posted on 9 March 2018

Just before ICANN 61, ICANN and its community received essential information regarding WHOIS and the GDPR and more.
The latest statement and recommendations are from the Berlin Group (International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications and Media or IWGDPT).

The Berlin Group started out in 1983 on the initiative of some national data protection authorities; nowadays members include government agencies, representatives of international organizations and IT experts from all over the world.

So basically we have the opinion on ICANN and registrant data and WHOIS vetted by all the members of the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy …

Update on ICANN and WHOIS

Posted on 6 March 2018

Kevin Murphy from DomainIncite has written an excellent article about the all the ins and outs how WHOIS might look like in May this year, which you can read here.

I do not entirely agree with Kevin if privacy services are going to be free.
In the current setup, our privacy proxy service still has added value when it comes to spam prevention.
I think it is more accurate, that if ICANN no longer requires personal data to be displayed in the WHOIS the need use a privacy service to prevent such display of personal data becomes obsolete, after …

ICANN Registrars express GDPR concerns to ICANN

Posted on 16 February 2018

Today the Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG) has joined its colleagues in the Registry Stakeholder Group, Eco Association of the Internet Industry and the Internet Infrastructure Coalition in raising its concerns with ICANN about GDPR.

The letter was drafted last week and got so much support from the registrar members that we could officially support it as a stakeholder group. Realtime Register B.V. was one of the supporters.

The letter to the ICANN CEO located here, can be described as “spicy,” or “\strong.” And I think it is with good reason. Since March 2016 a dedicated small group of registrars and …

Update on publication of personal data in the WHOIS / RDS

Posted on 18 January 2018

There has been a considerable debate whatever ICANN will enforce the contractual agreement between registrars and registries to display personal data in the WHOIS.

Publication of personal data in the WHOIS is usually in conflict with many data protection laws around the world.

The EU GDPR and its substantial non-compliance fines seem to sway the discussion into a direction where ICANN needs to come up with solutions. And they did: ICANN published several models that propose to limit the publication of personal data in the WHOIS. The next step is that the ICANN community analyzes these models.

The models created …

GDPR update, legal definitions and possible action items.

Posted on 18 January 2018

Below, a quick update and some information which is crucial to you as a reseller regarding the GDPR.

Privacy notice
We should have the privacy notice ready for you at the end of February.

Processing agreement
We expect to send this to our resellers at the end of February, given the vast amount of different jurisdictions and number of registries this may be delayed by a few weeks.

The processing agreement is required for your contractual agreements between you and our customers.

Legal definitions

  • ICANN, joint data controller
  • gTLD registries, joint data controller
  • ccTLD registries, data controller
  • Realtime Register (registrar), …

Why Registrars require an EU based Escrow provider

Posted on 12 October 2017

Domain names, registrant data and data protection, they all have a long history in the ICANN universe. Let’s do some time traveling and let me take you back in time, starting a decade ago…

March 2007
ICANN de-accredits RegistryFly, this disaster demonstrates clearly that Registrars should escrow registrant data to an escrow provider in case a registrar goes “down.”

To counter the RegistryFly disaster, ICANN introduced escrow requirements, ICANN picks up the bill, but of course, indirectly the registrars are paying for it, how much is unknown though, as we do not know how much ICANN is paying Iron …

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