It's worse than that. Article 29 Working Party (WP29) - which deals with data protection has said since 2003 (well over a decade!) that Whois is not compatible with EU law [0]. They just didn't have a way to enforce it before GDPR.
But ICANN are delusional idiots, maybe because they get so much money from US intellectual property interests. They did nothing, and then seemed to think that they could get a moratorium on enforcement. But even their own Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group basically told them to get lost [1].
It's a fascinating story of just how terrible ICANN is. As always, the Register has a great write-up [2].
One thing it clear, they deserve it. I do feel bad for registrars though, and hope they had more sense than ICANN and developed a plan B.
But ICANN are delusional idiots, maybe because they get so much money from US intellectual property interests. They did nothing, and then seemed to think that they could get a moratorium on enforcement. But even their own Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group basically told them to get lost [1].
It's a fascinating story of just how terrible ICANN is. As always, the Register has a great write-up [2].
One thing it clear, they deserve it. I do feel bad for registrars though, and hope they had more sense than ICANN and developed a plan B.
[0] http://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/opinion...
[1] https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/gdpr-comments-nc...
[2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/25/icann_whois_gdpr/