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.
“Unless there is a moratorium, we may no longer be able to give instructions to the contracted parties through our agreements to maintain Whois,” it warns. “Without resolution of these issues, the Whois system will become fragmented.”
We spoke with the president of ICANN’s Global Domains Division, Akram Atallah, and he told us that while there was “general agreement that having every thing public is not the right way to go”, he was hopeful that the letter would not result in the Whois service being turned off completely while a replacement was developed.
Source: Whois is dead as Europe hands DNS overlord ICANN its arse • The Register
It’s an important and useful tool – hopefully they will resolve this one way or another.
Robin Edgar
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