The recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) May Not Have Its Intended Impact

LONDON, Aug. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Recent data protection laws in Europe could have an adverse effect of fomenting cybercrime by dissolving the WHOIS system often used to link and identify hack, spam, and scam domains (and the identities of their owners).

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) came into effect earlier this year, and with it, numerous regulations to help protect identities of users on the web. However, some of these regulations are likely to create complications with the technology that has helped protect Internet users and domains up until this point.

A degree of transparency is needed on the Internet, says Javier Carrasco from Whois API Inc. The WHOIS tool allows users to identify the owners of domain names. Companies such as Whois API Inc have developed this technology further, gathering domain Whois records for APIs (Hosted Whois Web Service, Domain Availability API, Reverse Whois API, Brand Alert API, Registrant Alert API, Bulk Whois API, DNS Lookup API, Email Verification API, and Reputation Scoring API) and other uses (Whois Lookup, Reverse Whois/Registrant Search, Bulk Whois Lookup, data feeds, etc.).

The WHOIS tool and its enhancing technologies (such as Whois API) have become an important tool for identifying and tracing back cybercrime, spam, cyber bullying, and any kind of wrong-doing on the Internet back to its source. Nevertheless, registering a domain involves a commercial contract between the buyer and the service provider, which means that those involved have the right to privacy. This makes the public WHOIS system incompatible with GDPR regulations.

Others argue that the GDPR implementation is unlikely to have a strong-enough influence on privacy and the way information is currently being accessed on the Internet. For the last few years, domain registrars have frequently offered the option of keeping WHOIS information private for a small fee. Although companies such as Whois API Inc provides several tools that can trace domain owners back to their domains (and vice versa), the public WHOIS service has been a very useful resource for the average user who may not be inclined to take things a step beyond a fast online query.

SOURCE Whois XML API