ICANN has granted French registrar OVH a limited waiver from compliance with certain provisions of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). According to earlier reports, under ICANN’s new RAA, all registrars have to keep data on their registrants in the WHOIS database for a period of two years after termination of the customer relationship. This violates applicable EU directives and laws in many European countries, which limit the retention period to one year.
OVH submitted to ICANN a request asking that the agreement be amended, along with a legal opinion confirming that RAA violates French law. After a lengthy review, ICANN accepted the request and granted OVH a data retention waiver.
It should be noted, however, that ICANN’s decision applies to this specific case only, while there are many other European registrars who have voiced misgivings over RAA violating European legislation. Earlier, experts had said that a favorable decision on OVH’s request would automatically apply to other European registrars, but that does not seem to be the case.
