Facebook accused of trying to bypass GDPR, slurp domain owners' personal Whois info

Found on The Register on Wednesday, 24 June 2020
Browse Internet

Earlier this month, the CEO of domain registrar Namecheap Richard Kirkendall warned “Facebook is fighting for the blanket right to access your information,” and detailed efforts behind the scenes at DNS overseer ICANN to force through Facebook’s interpretation of privacy laws to slurp data on domain holders.

Facebook has been particularly aggressive, filing tens of thousands of requests for data on domains that are often only tangentially related to its trademarks and insisting its rights are being infringed. When those requests have been rebuffed, Facebook has then sued the companies that people used to register the names, claiming trademark infringement and demanding $100,000 in compensation.

But so far at least, the antisocial network – whose entire business is built on grabbing, storing and monetizing this kind of data – is determined to keep pushing its claims, even if it delays the creation of a new system for everyone else.

Hopefully the big registrars won't give in. Facebook is collecting way too much data and anybody who believes the whois information will not be merged into the databases with (shadow) profiles also believes in unicorns.