New trade agreement includes provision for Whois of country code domain names.
The new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, includes a requirement that the three member countries provide public access to Whois data for their respective country code domain names. It also mandates that the country code domains have a UDRP-like mechanism for resolving cybersquatting disputes.
Chapter 20 of the USMCA on Intellectual Property states:
Article 20.C.11: Domain Names
In connection with each Party’s system for the management of its country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) domain names, the following shall be available:
(a) an appropriate procedure for the settlement of disputes that, based on, or modelled along the same lines as, the principles established in the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy or that:
(i) is designed to resolve disputes expeditiously and at low cost,
(ii) is fair and equitable,
(iii) is not overly burdensome, and
(iv) does not preclude resort to judicial proceedings, and(b) online public access to a reliable and accurate database of contact information concerning domain name registrants, in accordance with each Party’s law and, if applicable, relevant administrator policies regarding protection of privacy and personal data.
In connection with each Party’s system for the management of ccTLD domain names, appropriate remedies shall be available at least in cases in which a person registers or holds, with a bad faith intent to profit, a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark.
The part about a database of contact information does not seem to preclude allowing Whois privacy and proxy services.
The United State’s country code domain is .US, Mexico’s is .MX and Canada’s is .CA.
John says
It seems that this can be interpreted anyway anyone wants:
“(b) online public access to a reliable and accurate database of contact information concerning domain name registrants, in accordance with each Party’s law and, if applicable, relevant administrator policies regarding protection of privacy and personal data.”
That could be a way of saying that whois should be done exactly as it has been done all the years before GDPR for most TLDs, i.e., “online public access” and “accurate database” mean exactly what it has always meant with regard to some whois being non-private and some whois allowing “public access” to whois privacy or proxy related data. In fact, I’m confident that is supposed to be the true meaning initially regardless of any whim of differing “interpretation” and application applied later.
Now last year it was announced the .US privacy was finally being made a priority for this year. Here we are near the end of the year, however, and there has been no change, and a new .US TownHall is already scheduled for Nov 29: https://www.about.us/townhall.
Whois privacy for .US domains as an option at the discretion of registrants is absolutely essential for .US progress, but even more fundamentally for simple .US safety according to the various needs of diverse entities. This is a no-brainer. For all intents and purposes, the American public still scarcely even knows that .US exists at all. Among those who do know, they scarcely even know at all that it represents the US country code instead of the third person pronoun “us.” Not having whois privacy as an option is an unequivocal discouragement and “chill” upon both the registration and the use of .US domains. It has already been this way since April 2002, while the rest of the world continually acknowledges the importance of greater options in privacy, and privacy/proxy has been available for nearly every other TLD all these years since. Moreover, there is simply no way that allowing .US whois privacy represents any impediment whatsoever to access by the appropriate authorized entities as well – there is simply nothing that can prevent the legitimate actors who legitimately need access to .US whois contact information behind any privacy or proxy from having it.
Andrew Allemann says
My interpretation is that this is indeed meant to be like Whois before GDPR.
John says
I like your interpretation, Andrew, and I would like your support for .us and .us whois privacy even better. 😉