ICANN temporarily suspends WHOIS enforcement, under certain conditions

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announced that its Contractual Compliance Department will not take action against registries and registrars for noncompliance with contractual obligations related to the handling of domain name registration data, under certain conditions. The decision is to apply on a temporary basis, while the organisation assess the impact of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on registry and registrars obligations concerning the WHOIS policy and other requirement related to domain name registration data. To be eligible for the ‘waiver’, registries and registrars will have to inform ICANN of how they plan to reasonably accommodate existing contractual obligations and the GDPR, and explain how the two are reconciled.