ICANN loses in German court (again)

Attempts to get an injunction forcing a German registrar to collect certain Whois data are failing.

ICANN has yet again failed to convince German courts that an injunction is needed to force domain name registrar EPAG to continue collecting certain information for Whois.

The non-profit domain name overseer sued EPAG, part of Tucows, the day the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect. EPAG had informed ICANN it would no longer collect Administrative and Technical contact data for Whois because of its interpretation of GDPR.

EPAG’s arguments included that it didn’t necessarily have a contractual relationship with the Admin or Tech contacts and that it was still collecting the registrant information.

The court denied the injunction and ICANN has gone through several appeals processes, bouncing between the courts.

In light of yet another ruling from an appeals court, ICANN said that it was limited to the issue of the necessity of an injunction.

Tucows CEO Elliot Noss has said that the lawsuit isn’t really adversarial. Both ICANN and Tucows no doubt believe they are correct but would welcome some clarification from the courts on how GDPR applies to Whois.