Judge orders DomainTools to cease collecting and publishing .nz Whois records.
Domain Name Commission (DNC), the organization that manages New Zealand’s .nz domain name, has won a big victory against DomainTools.
U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik has granted DNC’s motion for preliminary injunction against DomainTools. DNC alleged that DomainTools collected and published .nz Whois records in violation of DNC’s terms of use. DomainTools’ business model relies (in part) on aggregating domain name ownership data from Whois databases.
Lasnik ordered DomainTools to stop accessing .nz Whois records and to remove any publication of the records while the lawsuit proceeds. He did not seem sympathetic to any of DomainTools’ arguments. In one particularly damning paragraph, Lasnik wrote:
Finally, defendant argues that a preliminary injunction in this case could start an avalanche of litigation as other registers attempt to protect the privacy of their registrants. If defendant built a business by downloading, storing, and using data from other registers in violation of the terms that governed its access to that data, defendant may be correct – other
registers may be encouraged to pursue a breach of contract claim if plaintiff is successful here. It would be ironic, however, if a plaintiff who has shown a likelihood of success and irreparable injury were deprived of preliminary relief simply because defendant may have acted wrongfully toward others as well.
DomainTools is already facing headwinds thanks to the European Union’s GDPR, which has resulted in domain registrars ceasing to publish Whois records.
I have long thought this should/would occur and I shall join the list of people watching to see how this Case progresses.
Good. About time these little borderline criminal outfits learn the word “privacy”. And, if they can’t …sue them untill they do get it. Special thanks for the EU going after Google, Facebook, and the rest of these sleazy outfits. Their whole business model rests on their ability to violate you. If they can’t they are out of business.
lol
If you enter into an agreement with an entity which publishes your info, you have no justification to go around calling anyone “sleazy” and claim they “violated” you. Calm down.
lol
If you enter into an agreement and are told one thing and they misrepresent themselves, then as an FTC director put it…. “Facebook’s long history of privacy hostility should make that plain to any thinking person”…
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/10/a-brief-history-of-facebooks-privacy-hostility-ahead-of-zuckerbergs-testimony/
or as the EU put it…
https://www.biometricupdate.com/201807/facebook-faces-allegations-of-privacy-violations-and-manipulating-consent-for-facial-recognition
and the list goes on almost endlessly, then people do have a right to complain and most assuredly come under the classification of “sleazy” Ok ?
Not talking about Facebook. This is “Domain Name wire” – not “Facebook wire” . Get a clue.
Talking about the overall issue of privacy which has been addressed directly or indirectly in numerous articles here, most recently as it pertains to efforts by domainers in selling assets. It has many ramnifications good and not so good. Get a clue.
What about the agreement that users of WHOIS will not use “high-volume” or “bulk” queries to download and publish a copy of the Registry WHOIS?