ICANN has published a letter received from the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR). The letter contains the results of the survey answered by the members of CENTR. It clearly indicates that they are willing to hide of the published Whois data to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The European Parliament passed this law last year; it toughens the requirements for storage and publication of personal data of EU citizens.
Representatives of the 13 out of 28 surveyed registries of ccTLDs (which is 46.4%) said they plan to “hide certain data fields” in Whois to comply with GDPR requirements. In particular, it is supposed that the general information about the registrant could be hidden from Whois users and open only to authorized accounts of law enforcement. Some registries also reported their decision to review their registration agreement with ICANN and bring them in line with the new EU law.
