News Review | Europe Tells ICANN Again, No GDPR Moratorium

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-06-03) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) a. European Data Protection Board Tells ICANN, Again, No GDPR Moratorium, b. Handbook on European data protection law (2018 edition) 2) Other ICANN news: ICANN62 Webinar and more, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks, 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News, 5) Most Read Posts.

UPDATE 6 June 2018--ICANN v. EPAG Domainservices, GmbH | ICANN.org--ICANN published the German and English translations of EPAG documents filed in the German Court case in which ICANN's application for an injunction was denied: EPAG Protective Letter (German) [PDF 12.2 MB] and Affidavit of Alexander Schwertner (German) [PDF 145 KB]. English Translations below are unofficial; provided for information purposes only:

• English Translation of EPAG Protective Letter [PDF, 143 KB] embed below, 

• English Translation of Affidavit of Alexander Schwertner [PDF, 69 KB]

1) European Data Protection Board Tells ICANN, Again, No GDPR Moratorium

a. GDPR & WHOIS: In a week where a German Court rejected ICANN org's strong-arm attempt to maintain the public WHOIS personal data status quo, ICANN was also notified that the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) endorsed the statement of the WP29 on ICANN/WHOIS | edpb.europa.eu--27 May 2018 letter (embed below) to ICANN, excerpt:

"The European Data Protection Board endorsed the statement of the WP29 on ICANN/WHOIS during its first plenary meeting on 25 May ... The GDPR does not allow national supervisory authorities nor the European Data Protection Board (the WP29 will become the EDPB on 25 May 2018) to create an “enforcement moratorium” for individual data controllers. Data protection is a fundamental right of individuals, who may submit complaints to their national data protection authority whenever they consider that their rights under the GDPR have been violated ..." (emphasis added). 

Full embed below:

https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/alsenoy-to-plexida-swinehart-27may18-en.pdf

Editor's note: see also News Review | GDPR Moratorium Just Another ICANN 'Fantasy' 29 April 2018. For more on the GDPR & ICANN WHOIS, including litigation in Germany, see last week's News Review | GDPR Effect: ICANN Sues German Domain Name Registrar and updates therein.

I also recommend reading former ICANN staffer Kieren McCarthy's take on the events in Germany last week, including his review of how ICANN repeatedly deluded itself to reach this sorry state:

"... for an organization with a self-importance that often leads it down a path to delusion, being told that your most important contract is effectively unenforceable has to sting .... ICANN as an organization also has an opportunity to change with the times. The CEO and board have been able to see first hand how they were given terrible advice time and again from their own staff. The next year would be a good time to clean house and install a more diverse, open-minded and international team ..."

UPDATE: LIVE twitter feed of the European Data Protection Supervisor: Tweets by EU_EDPS b. Handbook on European data protection law (2018 edition) (pdf) (402 pages.):

Editor's Note: the manuscript for this handbook was completed in April 2018.

2) Other ICANN news

a. Pre-ICANN62 90 minute Policy Webinar 12 June 2018 | ICANN.org: Pre-ICANN62 Policy Webinar Tuesday, 12 June 2018 at 10:00 UTC and at 19:00 UTC. The webinar will run in English with simultaneous Spanish interpretation. The presentation materials will be translated into Spanish, and posted following the Webinar with the recordings of the sessions here. Register via this form by 11 June 2018. [Editor's note: ICANN62 Panama City, Panama, is June 25-28. See also ICANN Adobe Connect services restored effective 1 June 2018--ICANN.org.]

b. 29 May 2018 Letter (pdf) from NCSG Chair Farzaneh Badiei to ICANN Board Chair Cherine Chalaby--Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group's Input on ICANN's Fiscal Year 2019 Budget

 (full embed below):

See: ICANN Board Adopts the FY19 Operating Plan and Budget | ICANN.org

UPDATE June 4, 2018: Notice of ICANN Board Approval of FY19 Operating Plan and Budget to the Decisional Participants in the Empowered Community and the Empowered Community Administration: Pursuant to Section 22.4(a)(v) of the ICANN Bylaws: notice to the EC Administration and Decisional Participants in the Empowered Community that on 30 May 2018 the ICANN Board approved the FY19 Operating Plan and Budget. The resolution approving the FY19 Operating Plan and Budget is available at here. The FY19 Operating Plan is available here. The FY19 Budget is available here.

c. ICANN Reviews Webinars--ICANN.org: ICANN invites the community to attend one of two webinars being held to discuss short-term options and long-term options on the timeline of ICANN Reviews. The presentation will be identical for both one-hour webinars, scheduled as follows: Webinar 1: 07 June 2018: 5:00 UTC [local time] or Webinar 2: 07 June 2018:17:00 UTC [local time].

d. ICYMI: DENIC eG [domain: denic.de] as New ICANN-Designated Agent to Support Registrar Data Escrow Services | ICANN.org : "... ICANN org selected DENIC through a competitive Request for Proposal initiated in August 2017, following requests from the registrar community to expand the RDE program, in part to meet regional challenges such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR]. ... The Registrar Data Escrow program is intended to protect registrants in the event of registrar failure or termination of a Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) ..." More information at the link above.

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Tips for cleaning up WHOIS data | EPAG.de: "... To prevent personal data in an organization contact from being displayed in a public WHOIS, we recommend ... roles rather than personal names for Organization contact details ... use a generic company email address like “info@company.com” ... remove personal data from any organization contacts ... These tips give registrants the added advantage that their organization is not reliant on a particular person (for example during a transfer), should that person be out of the office or no longer employed by the company."

b. How to Choose a Domain Name That Will Stand the Test of Time | SearchEngineJournal.com: "...  9. What TLD? ...  follow this rule: Is your target market global (as in do your potential customers live all over the world)? Yes: Choose .COM.
No: Choose a TLD for the country you’re targeting [ccTLD] ... Why? Google doesn’t give any priority to keywords in your TLD ... Most potential customers would guess your domain ended in “.com”. The same goes for your email address ... A “.COM” or a country TLD [ccTLD] is more trustworthy and known than keyword gTLDs (e.g., “.BIKE”) ..."

c. Banished by the Google God: 16 Ways to Get Deindexed by Google | .searchenginejournal.com

d. U.S. District Judge Orders (pdf) Partial Dismissal in Mainstream Advertising's Trademark Infringement Case--In January 2018, Mainstream Advertising filed its second amended complaint, alleging trademark infringement, wrongful garnishment/seizure, abuse of process, conversion and Accounting. Moniker then filed its motion to dismiss--Florida Record | flarecord.com.

e. Tesla CEO Elon Musk registered the domain name Pravduh.com after saying he would create a site to rate reporters--CNBC.com.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

a. IGF2018 Update: "In view of the offer of the Government of France to host the 2018 IGF in Paris the week of 12 November, the deadline for workshop submissions has been extended ..." The new deadline is 6 June 2018, 23:59 UTC.

b. InternetNZ funds work on mobile services, internet addiction | computerworld.co.nz

c. Geoblocking: Amazon.com, Inc. will force Australians to use its Australian website instead of its much larger U.S. site to avoid a new sales tax.

d. EU & GDPR:

• EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line | juliareda.eu: "In stark contrast to the GDPR, experts near-unanimously agree that the copyright reform law, as it stands now, is really bad." EU governments agree on copyright reform, which still needs EU parliament approval, to let news sites charge aggregators for snippets and force upload filters on websites.
• Tech groups raise concerns EU ePrivacy plan could kill innovation | siliconrepublic.com
• EU data privacy laws are likely to create barriers to trade says Wilbur Ross, U.S. Commerce Secretary--ft.com: "We do not have a clear understanding of what is required to comply ... GDPR also raises concern for law enforcement and intellectual property rights by restricting access to publicly available internet domain-name registration data ..."
• EU Data Privacy Law (GDPR) Creates New Business for Tech Consultants--WSJ.com.
• NYTimes.com and noyb.eu: an Austrian privacy advocacy group has filed complaints against  Google and Facebook and two of Facebook’s subsidiaries, WhatsApp and Instagram, claiming they failed to give European users specific control over the use of their data, in violation of the GDPR, and asking regulators to impose fines--$4.3 billion on Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and $1.5 billion each on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp--roughly 4 percent of each company’s 2017 revenue, the maximum penalty allowed under the GDPR.
• 5 unexpected consequences of GDPR | TechRadar.com
• ICANN "has been too slow to react to the global impact of the GDPR.”--Andy Kays, CTO at Redscan--WHOIS GDPR Denial Will Harm Security Industry, But ICANN To Blame |informationsecuritybuzz.com.

5) The three most read posts this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review | GDPR Effect: ICANN Sues German Domain Name Registrar

2. Tech Review: 1) Powering the Internet of Things; 2) Switzerland & Crypto

3. Saildrones: The Robots Roaming the High Seas (video)

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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News Review | ICANN vs EU? ICANN "Studying" Legal Action in Europe

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-04-15) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) ICANN vs EU GDPR? ICANN "Studying" Legal Action in Europe, 2) Other ICANN news, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks, 4) ICYMI, 5) Most Read Posts.

UPDATE: WP29 Press Release 17 April 2018, re 10-11 April 2018 Plenary, ICANN see p. 2:

Facebook & Cambridge Analytica pp. 1-2: 

Editor's note: re-published 19 Apr 2018 (pdf). For more specifics re ICANN from WP29 see their letter dated 11 April 2018 (including annex) embedded here.

Original Post:

1) ICANN vs EU GDPR and the European Union's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party?

ICANN vs. EU GDPR? ICANN says it is "studying all available remedies, including legal action in Europe" after receiving the European Union's Article 29 Working Party (WP29) reply dated 11 Apr 2018 in response to ICANN's recent discussions and letters (see e.g., ICANN's letter to Giovanni Buttarelli), requesting "advice" and a "moratorium" (not granted) in regard to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which becomes enforceable May 25, 2018, and imposes stiff penalties for violations by "data controllers" such as ICANN and its "contracted parties" (registrars and registry operators) who maintain the heretofore public database of WHOIS information about domain name registrants.

ICANN Receives Data Protection/Privacy Guidance from Article 29 Working Party | ICANN.org: "... we are studying all available remedies, including legal action in Europe to clarify our ability to continue to properly coordinate this important global information resource. We will provide more information in the coming days ..."--Goran Marby, ICANN President & CEO, 12 Apr 2018

Meanwhile, as a result of the aforesaid WP29 reply to ICANN, the ad hoc ICANN BC and IPC group extended the deadline to comment on its proposed accreditation and access model to next Friday, 20 April 2018 at 4PM UTC (12 PM EDT). More info here. [Editor's note: that BC & IPC proposal (pdf) appears DOA "dead on arrival" and even more deficient than ICANN's proposed Interim Model (pdf) in light of the WP29's advice above and the devastating comments already submitted by ICANN's Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (embedded below).

Comments of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group on the Draft IPC/BC Purpose Statement Published on 27 March 2018 (pdf) embed:

See also:

• ICANN will not get a moratorium on GDPR compliance | InternetGovernance.org: "There is another good speculation about why ICANN, which has always put the interest of corporations first, suddenly cares about protecting the world and wants to prevent some of WHOIS information becoming private: Big players are putting pressure on ICANN to keep WHOIS open. Among them, might be the US government putting pressure on ICANN to do something about this annoying European law." (emphasis added)
• Game Over for WHOIS: Article 29 Gives ICANN the Advice it Asked for | blacknight.blog: "... Come the end of May public whois as we know it will be dead. Game over. This does not come as a surprise to many of us – we’ve been raising issues with it going back years ..."

Related:

• Europe's GDPR Meets WHOIS Privacy: Which Way Forward? | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org

• Data Protection/Privacy Issues Update: An ICANN Update & Most Frequently Asked Questions | ICANN.org

• The U.S. CLOUD Act and the EU: A Privacy Protection Race to the Bottom | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org: "... the EU does not have to follow the U.S. down the same path of privacy abandonment. Instead, EU institutions and Member States have the opportunity to champion logical solutions that help law enforcement access digital evidence while still protecting privacy and maintaining respect for the sovereignty of other nations ..."
• April,11, 2018 Letter to ICANN Board of Directors: Submission of GNSO Council Review of the San Juan GAC Communiqué (pdf) excerpt--

2) Other ICANN news

a. ICANN Organization’s Report on the Draft FY19 Budget Operating Plan Now Due 24 April |ICANN.org: 11 April 2018 - "Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that the ICANN organization's response to the public comments received in the Draft FY19 Operating Plan and Budget has been moved from 12 April to 24 April. This will allow the ICANN org and the Board to have the appropriate time to provide thoughtful and detailed responses."

b. Fellowship Program at ICANN ​Community Consultation Process (pdf): "As guiding principles for this comment, the GNSO Council believes that: 1. ICANN needs to develop clear objectives and verifiable metrics to demonstrate the Return On Investment (ROI), if any, from the Fellowship and other similar programs in consultation with the community; and 2. ICANN needs to reconsider its expenditure on the Fellowship and other programs to reflect this ROI and assess that on an ongoing basis ..."

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. ccTLD .au: Domain administrator auDA members call for CEO and directors' heads to roll | cio.com.au: "... In late July last year, auDA held a special general meeting, with the board telling members that “high levels of expenditure on international travel and reimbursement arrangements with international bodies [Editor's note: ICANN?] that lacked transparency”..."

b. Black Lives Matter Facebook page was scam run by white Australian Ian Mackay, report says |WashingtonPost.com: “My domain name buying and selling is a personal hobby”--Ian Mackay.

c. US: Federal authorities take down Backpage.com, site accused of being a haven for online prostitution | latimes.com.

d. Protecting Your Neighborhood’s Identity – Registering A Trademark | SmithAmundsen LLC | JDSupra.com: "Trademark registration of the association’s name and logo give the association increased power to protect the good name and reputation of its neighborhood or condominium ..."

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

a. GDPR: Major blockchain group says Europe should exempt Bitcoin from new data privacy rule | TheVerge.com: Washington DC think tank CoinCenter.org says blockchain technology may be fundamentally incompatible with GDPR and that Europe should exempt Bitcoin from it.

b. EU says Facebook confirmed data of 2.7 million Europeans 'improperly shared' | Reuters.com

c. Singapore’s Economic Success ‘Comes at the Sacrifice of Humans Rights,’ Says Activist Han Hui Hui | GlobalVoices.org.

d. EU fake news fight 'clashing with right to freedom of expression' | Euronews.com

e. How Did Americans Lose Their Right to Privacy? | Heartland.org

f. Is the FCC About to Get Throttled? The Likelihood of Success on Reversing Net Neutrality | Texas Lawyer | law.com: "Was the Public Comment Period Conducted in Compliance with FCC Regulations? Probably not."

g. Warning over chilling impact on ‘freedom of expression’ if social media regulation unchecked | IrishExaminer.com: "Social media technology giant, Twitter, has suggested growing efforts to clamp down on 'undesirable content' on social media will inevitably impact 'freedom of expression' online."

h. Russia Seeks To Block Telegram In Showdown Over Internet Freedom | rferl.org: "Russia's state media regulator has asked a court to block the messaging app Telegram following the company's refusal to give the Federal Security Service (FSB) access to users' messaging data."

5) Most read posts this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review | How Cloudflare Is Helping Protect Personal Data Online

2. IEA Report Forecasts USA Dominating Global Oil Markets Going Forward

3. Hearing April 11: Facebook $FB Transparency and Use of Consumer Data

4. European Union WP29 To Facebook $FB: "Sorry Is Not Enough"

5. China's Internet Crackdown (video), Infographic on Internet Freedom

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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European Union WP29 To Facebook $FB: "Sorry Is Not Enough"

News Review UPDATE 11 April 2018 Reply from EU Article 29 Working Party to ICANN

On Wednesday, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was testifying at his second public hearing before a committee on Capitol Hill this week, the European Union's Article 29 Working Party (WP29) issued its own press release entitled "Sorry is not enough": WP29 establishes a Social Media Working Group.  Full press release embedded below following this excerpt:

Related:

• GDPR: Are you ready? | insurancebusinessmag.com

• The UK Information Commissioner’s take on a ‘game changing’ few weeks in data protection: "As a data controller we must be prepared for the GDPR like anyone else but, for the ICO, 25 May means we must be ready to regulate the GDPR. That’s an additional challenge…We’re expecting more of everything. More breach reports because the law requires it in high risk cases. More complaints, because people will be better informed of their rights. Greater engagement as organizations turn to us for advice at the outset"--Elizabeth Denham.
• Facebook Announces Plan to Implement GDPR Globally | Reed Smith | JDSupra.com

See also on Domain Mondo:

• Hearing April 11: Facebook $FB Transparency and Use of Consumer Data

• News Review Update: Senate Hearing April 10 on Facebook Data Abuse

"The Facebook scandal has three aspects:
→ #DataProtection: we are equipped to remedy the situation with #GDPR
→ Fraud: national authorities have to address it with criminal justice
→ Electoral freedom: we need to know more about what happened" says Commissioner @VeraJourova pic.twitter.com/1SUpSrDoCH

— European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) April 11, 2018

Glad to hear that #Facebook wants to use EU #DataPrivacy standards as their global model. We will observe with great interest how the letter - and the spirit - of the law are applied. #GDPR comes into force on 25th May. https://t.co/liqG0az0yQ

— Věra Jourová (@VeraJourova) April 9, 2018

Interesting read: Sheryl Sandberg’s interview with the @financialtimes: Europe is ahead on #DataProtection. I would like to talk to her this week, also about the #GDPR. https://t.co/c5GUYXqkdC via @financialtimes

— Věra Jourová (@VeraJourova) April 9, 2018

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News Review | How Cloudflare Is Helping Protect Personal Data Online

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-04-08) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) a. How Cloudflare Is Helping Protect Personal Data Online, b. US Data Protection Regulator? c. Facebook Hearing Tuesday, 2) ICANN news: a. Data Protection and Privacy: ICANN WHOIS vs EU GDPR & Article 29 Working Party, and more, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks, 4) ICYMI, 5) Most Read.

UPDATE 11 April 2018 Reply from EU Article 29 Working Party to ICANN (full embed below): No moratorium given to ICANN, in fact "The WP29 continues to have concerns, however, regarding several aspects of the Proposed and Final Interim Model. Attached to this letter you will find the areas for which the WP29 considers it of utmost importance that ICANN either reconsider or further evaluate its current approach. The concerns highlighted here are without prejudice to additional concerns, further inquiries or findings being made by the WP29 or its members at a later date."

UPDATE 10 Apr 2018: LIVE Video of US Senate Facebook Hearing Tuesday: "Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data"--

U.S. Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees Joint Hearing with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Tuesday, April 10, 2018, 2:15 p.m. EDT. Video courtesy PBS NewsHour. Video also available here.

Original Post:
1) a. How Cloudflare Is Helping Protect Personal Data Online

Bloomberg.com video above published Apr 5, 2018: Michelle Zatlyn, Cloudflare co-founder and chief operating officer, explains how the company is helping to improve the protection of online personal data. She speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology."

Cloudflare, Inc. (domain: cloudflare.com) is a US-based company, founded in July 2009, providing a content delivery network (CDN), DDoS mitigation, internet security services and distributed domain name server services, as well as acting as a reverse proxy for websites. Cloudflare is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with additional offices in London, Singapore, Champaign, Austin, Boston and Washington, D.C. Cloudflare's founders are Matthew Prince (CEO), Lee Holloway, and Michelle Zatlyn.

Domain Name System (DNS): Cloudflare offers free a Domain Name System (DNS) service. SolveDNS has found Cloudflare to consistently have one of the fastest DNS lookup speeds worldwide, with a reported lookup speed of 8.66ms in April 2016. Cloudflare provides DNS services to 6 million websites, and is adding approximately 20,000 new customers every day.

On April 1, 2018, Cloudflare announced a 'privacy-first' consumer DNS service, hosted at IP addresses "1.1.1.1" and "1.0.0.1". Alternatively, the service can be accessed via IPv6 at "2606:4700:4700::1111" and "2606:4700:4700::1001".

b. U.S. Needs A Data Protection Regulator Like The EU says The Atlantic's Foer

Bloomberg.com video above published Apr 6, 2018: Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic (domain: theatlantic.com) and author of "World Without Mind,"  discusses possible U.S regulation to secure social-media user data, and Facebook's influence on journalism. He speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology."

c. US Senate Hearing Tuesday: Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data

Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees Announce Joint Hearing with Facebook CEO | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary: Tuesday, April 10, 2018, 2:15 p.m. EDT; sole witness will be Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer, Facebook. LIVE video of the hearing above.

See also Why Mark Zuckerberg’s 14-Year Apology Tour Hasn’t Fixed Facebook | WIRED.com. Despite Mark Zuckerberg's repeated apologies over 14 years, Facebook has continued to violate users' privacy, driven primarily by its business model.

2) ICANN News
a. Data Protection and Privacy: ICANN WHOIS vs EU GDPR & Article 29 Working Party

In contrast to other global US-based corporations like Cloudfare (above) and Salesforce.com, Inc.,  ICANN has resisted and delayed implementing protections for personal data and privacy for domain name registrants (see WHOIS policies), particularly in the context of complying with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted by the EU on 14 April 2016, and enforceable worldwide effective May 25, 2018. See on Domain Mondo last week's News Review | ICANN's GDPR Train Wreck, A Day Late And A Dollar Short.

ICANN now says it is "hopeful" that the EU's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29), will come to the rescue of ICANN at the WP29's plenary April  10-11:

Discussion with Article 29 Working Party | ICANN.org 29 Mar 2018: "... we anticipate that ICANN and the WHOIS system will be on the upcoming Article 29 plenary's agenda for 10-11 April 2018 ... We look forward to receiving advice following the plenary, which we may rely on to complete the model [pdf], and are hopeful that we will also be provided with a moratorium on enforcement that would allow sufficient time to implement the model and build the appropriate accreditation system."--Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO (emphasis and link added).

Article 29 Working Party plenary April 10-11 agenda (highlighting added):

Editor's note: Like everyone else (see Salesforce video), ICANN had two years to prepare for the GDPR prior to 25 May 2018. Perhaps the WP29 will grant ICANN a special extended moratorium on GDPR enforcement (but for how long? the next 2 to 4 years?). We may know more after the Article 29 plenary this week.

Prior correspondence from the EU's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party to ICANN:

See also 29 March 2018 Letter from Lena Lindgren Shelin to Göran Marby (pdf).

There are basically three different approaches to data protection and privacy in the world right now:

1. EU: The European Union stands firmly for the interests of the individual as reflected in the GDPR which requires any company, anywhere, respect the data rights of EU citizens, or face stiff penalties.
2. US: In the United States, corporations are allowed to trade in personal data for profit, and those practices have expanded largely unchecked.
3. China: The third approach is state control of data, emerging as China’s social credit system, presently an internal policy.

The EU policy puts control of personal data in the hands of the individual, while the U.S. approach grants control to corporations.

"... Now, weeks before the GDPR goes into effect, the evidence is mounting that the EU’s approach will dominate. One good measure of this dominance is the speed with which countries around the world are recognizing the supremacy of the EU data protection standard by adopting models that align closely with the GDPR ..."--The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data | WIRED.com 28 Mar 2018 (emphasis added).

b. In a related ICANN GDPR matter, I attended the online meeting Friday, April 6, of the ad hoc  group trying to draft an "Accreditation and Access Model for Non-Public WHOIS Data." On a technical level, I found the ICANN-provided WebEx conferencing inferior to Adobe Connect (I received pop-ups that said I had "messages" but could not see or access the "messages," which may have been because I was using the browser version of WebEx in lieu of downloading and installing java). Info on the Intellectual Property and Business Constituencies drafts are on this ICANN webpage and also here. Without getting into all of the details, I will note I found the group's latest draft deficient, and I doubt any responsible data controller subject to the GDPR would rely on it or adopt it as a "model" for accreditation and access.

c. Afilias press release re EU’s GDPR 5 Apr 2018: "Afilias today announced that it is temporarily suspending plans to limit the display of WHOIS data to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) currently scheduled to take effect on 25 MAY 2018. Afilias has received a number of questions about its plans, and anticipates that they may be affected by guidance from data protection authorities that has been requested by ICANN ..."

d. ICANN Webinar on the Draft Final Report of the NomCom2 Review | ICANN.org: 10 April 2018,  20:00 – 21:00 UTC [local time]. To participate, request a calendar invitation by email to mssi-secretariat@icann.org. More details here including dial-in instructions and webinar slide deck.

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. GDPR Impact on Domain Name Transfers and Registrant Contact Changes (pdf)

b. Domainer Scammed For $26k On A Stolen Domain! | NamePros.com

c. Where did the domain name investors go? | OnlineDomain.com

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

a. Facebook's Ideological Imperialism | TheAtlantic.com: It’s mostly forgotten now, but for a time, expanding the reach of social networks—making Facebook, Twitter, and others like it as large as possible—was an avowed foreign-policy goal of the United States. That is, at least, what the Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] said in the early days of this decade ... Facebook is sometimes accused of a kind of corporate imperialism, but Bosworth’s memo speaks more of an ideological imperialism. We will do these ugly things, because our cause is just—this is the cry of imperial ideologues throughout time (link added).

b. Turkey: Crackdown on Social Media Posts | Human Rights Watch | hrw.org: Detention, Prosecutions Over Criticisms of Turkish Army Actions in Syria.

c. China’s New Cyber Rules Add to Cost of Doing Business There | WSJ.com: Effective March 31, 2018, businesses can use only government-approved virtual private networks to bypass the country’s internet restrictions. See also Websites blocked in mainland China | Wikipedia.org.

d. Uruguayan journalist and TeleSUR news network founder Aram Aharonian: It's Time to Review 'Fairy Tale of Absolute Internet Freedom'.

e. Chomsky, Brian Eno Demand Ecuador #Reconnect Julian Assange | teleSURtv.net

5) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma: From KFC Reject to Asia's Richest Man

2. News Review | ICANN's GDPR Train Wreck, A Day Late And A Dollar Short

3. AWS Summit 2018 | San Francisco | LIVE Stream April 4

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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