ICANN has officially announced that it satisfied requests of four European registrars that sought changes in the Accreditation Agreement that they sign with the corporation. These are ingenit GmbH & Co. KG, 1API GmbH and RegistryGate GmbH (Germany) and MAILCLUB SAS (France). The stumbling block was the article of the agreement that required registrars to save information about their former registrants for two years after the termination of all relations with them.
This article contradicts the laws on the protection of personal data of the EU and most of other European countries; experts repeatedly pointed that out during the preparation of accreditation agreement as amended in 2013 (when the controversial provision was introduced), however, back than their voice wasn’t heard. But after the adoption of agreement registrars themselves started to indicate the problem. The first company that won in a dispute with ICANN was French OVH SAS. It presented opinion of independent lawyers stating that agreement with ICANN violates law in France. As a result, OVH SAS was allowed to indicate in agreement with ICANN that it would store data of former clients for one year, not for two.
This decision sets a precedent, and MAILCLUB SAS complain was granted automatically. Decision in favor of German companies allowed to set precedent for their country. ICANN specifically noted that for further waiver requests from German registrars similar conditions would apply that for now are approved for ingenit GmbH & Co. KG, 1API GmbH and RegistryGate GmbH (data retention for one year, nor for two). Observers expect that in the near future accreditation agreement will be revised.
