Icann And The Whois Database

Author : Stephanie E. Perrin
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (133 download)

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Download or read book The Struggle for WHOIS Privacy written by Stephanie E. Perrin and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation examines the struggle over privacy rights in WHOIS, the public directory of registrants of Internet domain names. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is the non-profit corporation established by the U.S. government to run the Domain Name System and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, functions essential for Internet operations. Through contractual obligation, ICANN requires registrars to collect and publish personal data in the WHOIS directory, contravening many national data protection laws. My research first asked how ICANN managed to avoid the demands of authorities mandated to enforce data protection laws. Analyzing extensive documentary records maintained by ICANN, I demonstrate that the organization refused to effectively accommodate privacy concerns in their policies. I found that, since its inception, ICANN rebuffed repeated complaints by data protection authorities that WHOIS requirements violate national laws and continue to avoid privacy compliance. I provide evidence of a clash of values in the emerging commercial Internet. Business enterprises with strong intellectual property interests, supported by the U.S. government, initiated the focus on an open WHOIS policy to ensure they could identify suspected copyright and trademark violators. Law enforcement agencies represented at ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee also demanded open access to registrant data. A growing information services industry depended on the sale of this data to domain businesses and cybercrime fighters in both the public and private sectors. In combination, these stakeholders have prevented privacy advocates from gaining a foothold. Data Protection Authorities have also declined to exercise their powers, and they have remained outsiders and unsuccessful interveners in ICANN's multi-stakeholder process. The dissertation then explores the implications of this failure of privacy law from the perspectives of Internet privacy scholarship and accountability issues in multi-stakeholder governance. Establishing WHOIS as a wide-open information resource not only erodes legitimate expectations of privacy in telecommunications directories, it undermines our ability to negotiate personal space and speech on the Internet. This research contributes to understanding challenges to Internet privacy, law enforcement access to personal data, and the prospects for developing international Internet governance regimes that promote the public interest while protecting the rights of individuals.