GoDaddy has made it very clear that their action is unrelated to GDPR, most recently in a message to this list from Sara Bockey ( http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-rds-pdp-wg/2018-February/005543.html ).

You can choose to believe them or not. Since their action has only affected their bulk access path and not the web interface, it would offer ZERO protection with regard to GDPR, so I am inclined to accept their explanation.

Apologies for having missed this bit of information. I tried by no means undermining their specific recent statement on this. At least I wasn't the only one that assumed this link to GDPR earlier. I'm under the impression that some of the copyright enforcement has required bulk access for sending takedown notices through their own automatic systems and that has probably given some copyright infringers a break.

We have a difficult enough job dealing with the facts and the very significant uncertainties. Let's not invest alternative facts to confuse us even more.

OK, GoDaddy isn't an example of GDPR protecting data subjects outside its direct reach but I'm sure there are other companies that have already harmonised their global way of processing data because of the GDPR. I doubt that registries and registrars would give people outside GDPR less privacy, because it's also more expesive to implement these kinds of separate systems and layered access. It's cheaper to restrict everyone's access to all data, takes up less bandwith, too.

-Raoul