Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), the domain name registrar owned by
VeriSign Inc., recently announced that it is selling contact
information about its customers. The European Commission has
expressed concern that there could be a breach of data protection
rules.
NSI controls the internet’s database of generic top level
domains. For the first years of the World Wide Web, it was the only
place to register .com, .net and .org addresses. The company
recently approached marketers with an offer, described by NSI as:
“Approximately 6 million unique customers, sliced and diced for you
to target prospects, learn about a specific audience or retain
customers… Take this information and run with it.”
An official with the internal market directorate of the European
Commission told ZDNet.com that the Commission wants to “look into
what exactly NSI is proposing and how it would be affected by data
protection rules.” The European data protection regime forbids the
transfer of personal data about European citizens to countries
without equivalent legal protections, which includes the US.
Marketers are being offered registrants’ names, postal
addresses, telephone numbers, an indication of whether their domain
names are in use and, if so, whether they are doing e-commerce and
whether they have security on their sites. However, e-mail
addresses are not being supplied in an attempt to avoid spam.
NSI also says that consumers taking domain names will not be
included in its lists for sale, which could avoid the concerns of
the European Commission. However, it is not clear whether NSI is or
is not including the personal details of the individuals at
businesses who register the domain names. NSI also says that its
customers were given the an opt-out to avoid their data being
sold.
OUT-LAW.COM’s Linda Molloy, a lawyer specialising in e-commerce,
said:
“If European companies want to use NSI's
list, they should be asking NSI to give warranties that the list
complies with data protection legislation. Otherwise, if the list
is not data protection compliant, then companies who use the list
may expose themselves to enforcement proceedings under the Act.
This is essential as the cost of cleaning such a list would be
dispropotionate to the actual value of the list.”
NSI is obliged by the US government to give public access to its
WHOIS database. However, selling the data in “sliced and diced”
format will be much more attractive to marketers.
