GDPR and domain sales mandate the use of Escrow.com Concierge

With the upcoming onslaught of the GDPR – a European Union approach to data privacy that wasn’t vetted by American organizations – the domain industry is about to lose yet another battle.

So far, ICANN has been unable to come to a consensus regarding WHOIS policies under the GDPR. It seems that the lack of a definitive action will result in the masking of most data from all WHOIS repositories, to avoid complications or potential penalties.

For better or worse, domain ownership has been associated with the WHOIS for the best part of the commercial Internet and domain life.

New technologies, such as blockchain, might shift the paradigm onto a structure that delivers signed, digital titles of domain ownership, without the need to expose all information.

Until then, the best solution when buying and selling domain names via a third party escrow service, such as Escrow.com, is to let someone else bear the burden of confirmation.

That’s the benefit of Escrow.com Concierge, which I use almost exclusively these days. It allows me to pass the domain under the control of Escrow.com and receive payment very promptly.

The GDPR will complicate such verification steps for standard transactions that require proof of transfer or of account push.

Now, there will be an additional reason to use the Escrow.com Concierge, aside from the overall trust factor and prompt fund release: it will most likely be the only option to confirm that the WHOIS change took place.