Disrupting Global Governance: The Internet Whois Service, ICANN, and Privacy

Abstract

The Internet’s Whois service allows anyone to type a domain name into a Web interface and then receive the name and contact details of whoever has registered it. ICANN contracts make it mandatory to provide indiscriminate public access to this information. Data protection laws in Europe and other countries conflict with this ICANN policy, yet Whois has remained in place for a decade. This paper offers an explanation for this puzzling contradiction. We use the concept of a default value to explain how the development of a technological system can change the institutional conditions under which rights claims can be realized. We also note that the Whois story poses problems for Daniel Drezner’s theory of global governance. Despite disagreement between the two great powers, the ICANN regime provides effective global governance; Drezner’s theory cannot explain how the rise of a technical system could produce a global shift in privacy policy and alter the bargaining power of Great Powers.

Keywords: data protection, default value, domain name, global governance, great powers, ICANN, identity, Internet governance, jurisdiction, path dependency, personal data, policy, privacy, Whois, GigaNet