Legal issues

Prev		Next

Important

In many countries, legal issues can very quickly become intractable or simply too expensive to be solved in a "proper" way.

The Internet itself was never built on a solid legal ground. Do not wait until all legal problems are completely solved before you build something. Legal problems are just technical problems, they are not an aim in theirselves.

Insurance

Besides the physical damages (fire, for instance), the registry may have legal liabilities: check them.

Contracts

With ICANN

ICANN asks for a formal contract, TODO.

	Warning
	Before signing it, check the consequences.

With registrars

What are the possible criteria to apply for the accreditation of registrars? What are proceedings to check that the criteria are met? When does the accreditation of registrars take place? Should the selection criteria be steady?

You will specify things like TODO

With domain name holders

TODO

Zero-paper and the law

A typical DNS registry is widely automated and uses only dematerialized exchanges. Check the consequences on your legal system.

Software

This document assumes that you only use free software. In any case, do not forget that illegal copying of commercial software is... illegal and that a DNS registry, which is highly visible, is a tempting target for enforcers.

Protection of personal data

	Important
	It is not purely a legal question: in many countries, the law is sufficiently lax that you can do almost what you want with the data. It does not mean that ou should. There are also policy choices here.

TODO: European law?

Arbitration and dispute resolution

TODO