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ICANN Appeals German Court Decision on GDPR / WHOIS

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today appealed a decision by the Regional Court in Bonn, Germany not to issue an injunction in proceedings that ICANN initiated against EPAG, a Germany-based, ICANN-accredited registrar that is part of the Tucows Group. The appeal was filed to the Higher Regional Court of Cologne, Germany.

ICANN is asking the Higher Regional Court to issue an injunction that would require EPAG to reinstate the collection of all WHOIS data required under EPAG’s Registrar Accreditation Agreement with ICANN.

The Regional Court in Bonn rejected ICANN’s initial application for an injunction, in which ICANN sought to require EPAG to collect administrative contact and technical contact data for new domain name registrations.

If the Higher Regional Court does not agree with ICANN or is not clear about the scope of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ICANN is also asking the Higher Regional Court to refer the issues in ICANN’s appeal to the European Court of Justice.

ICANN is appealing the 30 May 2018 decision by the Regional Court in Bonn as part of ICANN’s public interest role in coordinating a decentralized global WHOIS for the generic top-level domain system.

“We are continuing to seek clarity of how to maintain a global WHOIS system and still remain consistent with legal requirements under the GDPR,” said John Jeffrey, ICANN’s General Counsel and Secretary. “We hope that the Court will issue the injunction or the matter will be considered by the European Court of Justice.”