Dot Exemption: Privacy, ICANN and the Need for Flexibility in “All Applicable Laws”

ICANN’s contractual framework, as reflected in the Registry Agreement and 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), generally requires that registries and registrars comply with “all applicable laws.” “All applicable laws” is a term left undefined in the Registry Agreement; the challenge in concisely capturing the temporal, geographic and subject matter scope of the chimeric phrase as it relates to Internet-based registries operating in different fields (e.g., health, finance, organic) worldwide is daunting. As a result, ICANN adopted a uniformity-by-necessity approach – and who doesn’t intend to comply with all applicable laws in any event?

Read the entire Article on gTLD.club:
http://gtld.club/2014/04/08/dot-exemption-privacy-icann-and-the-need-for-flexibility-in-all-applicable-laws/

Tony Onorato is Counsel / CIPP/US at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in New York (www.steptoe.com). He advised gTLD clients representing nearly 10 percent of all application filed worldwide as part of his technology and commercial litigation practice.