Duncan729
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On May 25, 2018, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will go into full effect. The privacy regulation will have a major impact on industries that handle personal data of people in the EU, including the domain name industry.
Domain name companies are scrambling to figure out how to comply with the regulation, all while racing against the clock with unclear guidelines from the EU and ICANN.
The regulation aims to minimize data collection and increase transparency. Two overarching principles are privacy by default and privacy by design. So when offering services, privacy must be the default setting rather than an opt-out.
Here are some of my takeaways on GDPR:
- Expect tiered access to certain elements of Whois. Perhaps they will be available to law enforcement but not the public. The Registration Directory Service (RDS) idea might not be too far off.
- This is going to be a big cost burden on domain name registrars, especially small ones. They might start contracting with third parties to handle Whois for thin whois domains.
- Right now registrars handle private information for .com and .net domains and publish this in Whois (thin whois). These two domains are supposed to transfer to a thick Whois model, but don’t be surprised if this is delayed. Also don’t be surprised if Verisign is allowed to raise the price on .com domains after implementing thick Whois.
Read the Domain Name Wire Article Here
