Distinguished Seminar Series: Steve Crocker

During an MTI seminar on March 2, internet pioneer Steve Crocker, who currently chairs the ICANN Board of Directors, described ongoing efforts to develop a more balanced and effective policy that is both consistent with the emergent privacy laws and the needs of today’s internet.

Crocker spoke as part of MTI's Distinguished Seminar Series, which features leading decision makers and thought leaders in the field of transportation. All events in the series are free and open to the public.

Crocker began his presentation with a quote from zoologist J.B.S. Haldane’s On Being the Right Size. “A large change in size inevitably carries with it a change of form,” Haldane wrote—words applicable not only to zoology but to the internet’s WHOIS system.

A key part of the domain registration system, WHOIS dates back to the much tinier internet of the 1980s, when its users were mainly researchers and specialists, and privacy concerns were few, Crocker said. WHOIS was never intended to serve a sprawling, global network of the kind that has since emerged, and the strains have been tangible. Longstanding concerns over privacy came to a head recently with Europe’s implementation of the General Data Protection Law (GDPR), which spurred an abrupt reduction in the availability of WHOIS data.

Crocker, who is chair of the ICANN Board of Directors, described ongoing efforts to develop a more balanced and effective policy that is both consistent with the emergent privacy laws and the needs of today’s internet.

Involved in the internet since its inception, Crocker now heads the internet research and development company Shinkuro, which builds tools for cooperation and collaboration.

For more information about MTI or the Distinguished Seminar Series, contact Connie Tang, Assistant Director for Research and Outreach, at ctang12@umd.edu.

Published March 15, 2020