ICANN continues to struggle with who can access domain name registration data under the EU general data protection regulation, a Monday webinar heard. The law is specific about the role of data controllers, and ICANN is trying to determine if creating a unified model for access to nonpublic Whois data complies, said CEO Goran Marby. It's up to the community to decide whether it supports such unified access, he said. Legal and technical approaches are under consideration, said General Counsel John Jeffrey, including the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), to enable users to access current domain registration data that could eventually replace the Whois database. Third parties seeking access to nonpublic data would submit a request to ICANN, which would approve it and pass it along to the data controllers (registries and registrars) or deny it, he said. Comments are due Oct. 13. There's also an expedited policy development process (ePDP) on ICANN's temporary specification for generic top-level domain registration data, said David Olive, senior vice president-policy development support. EPDP is expected to deliver a draft initial report by the Oct. 20-25 ICANN meeting in Barcelona, followed by publication of an initial report for comment shortly thereafter, he said. Marby said GDPR is fairly specific about the individual role of data controllers, and the only way to change the situation would be to lower the risk of liability for registries and registrars. He stressed that none of the proposed solutions will happen if contracted parties don't feel their GDPR risks are diminished. The probability of having a technical solution such as RDAP is likely low but ICANN must ask, he said.

Past administrations of "both parties" gave "some lip service" to curbing China's unfair trade practices "but never followed through," National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said during a Q&A at the Economic Club of Washington Thursday. President Donald Trump "is following through" with the three rounds of Trade Act Section 301 tariffs he imposed over the summer, Kudlow said. He acknowledged he's "more of a doctrinaire free trader" than his boss, and that he opposed the administration's Section 232 tariffs on steel imports before joining the White House from CNBC. But there's "a lot of unfair trading practices" worldwide, and "the biggest culprit is China, and that can't be left alone," said Kudlow. "China has played fast and loose with the rules," he said. "The World Trade Organization needs reforms to enforce those rules. China's taken advantage. They're not a third-world country anymore. Why should we have to suffer?" Trump wants "a level playing field" with China, said Kudlow. "He wants reciprocity. Ultimately, he wants zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, zero subsidies." Kudlow acknowledged tariffs "may be painful in some cases," but Trump is "a disrupter." Kudlow is "quite patient" with the policy, and confident a deal with China "can be negotiated" as a result, he said. It has been only "four or five months" since Trump first imposed tariffs, Kudlow said: "Let him do his work."

The Internet Association has joined tech groups hailing the trilateral trade agreement the Trump administration reached last weekend with Canada and Mexico (see 1810020035 or 1810020001) but is concerned the deal’s copyright provisions fall short, said CEO Michael Beckerman Wednesday. The digital-trade provisions “will promote and protect U.S. digital exports and support millions of American jobs,” said Beckerman. Digital trade benefits “businesses of all sizes in every industry, and this agreement reflects key parts of U.S. law that have created a $160 billion American digital trade surplus,” he said. “In the copyright area, however, the agreement includes only a portion of the core U.S. legal framework.” IA hopes the administration will include "key provisions in U.S. law like fair use-style rights."

CTA joined tech groups hailing the trilateral trade agreement the U.S., Canada and Mexico reached over the weekend (see 1810010018), as it modernizes the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Software and Information Industry Association supported the agreement, but Public Knowledge criticized the intellectual property “chapter” as reflecting “the priorities of major corporate rightsholders.” The “new NAFTA,” as CTA President Gary Shapiro called the deal Tuesday, “supports America's innovation by reducing barriers to digital trade,” and prevents “discrimination” against U.S. “payment platforms,” he said. CTA wants the Trump administration to “add guidelines on a balanced approach to copyright” to the agreement so Congress “may vote quickly on this pro-tech trade deal,” he said. The agreement bars duties and “other discriminatory measures” on products distributed electronically, and “ensures cross-border data transfer,” CTA noted. SIIA is “particularly pleased” with the agreement’s “cross-border data flow obligations” and protections for “source code/algorithms,” said Vice President-Public Policy Mark MacCarthy Monday. PK urged Congress to revise the Trade Promotion Authority “to guarantee that future trade negotiations are conducted in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, and with a minimum of democratic transparency.” It labeled the agreement a “missed opportunity to truly adapt NAFTA to the 21st century.”

European privacy officials Sunday pressed Facebook for details about the impact on EU citizens from the latest breach (see 1809280036). The Data Protection Commission Ireland tweeted Sunday it was waiting for details from Facebook about affected EU users “so that we can properly assess the nature of the breach and risk to users.” EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova urged the platform to “fully cooperate” with the Irish regulator, saying “we need to know if EU users were affected and what had happened to their data.” Data Protection Commission Ireland said Monday that Facebook notified officials that EU users represented less than 10 percent of the 50 million reportedly affected. EU general data protection regulation violators face up to $20 million per infraction, or 4 percent of global revenue, whichever is more. Facebook initially said as many as 50 million users were affected, and reset access information for another 40 million as a precaution. The company didn’t comment on the European response.

EU and U.S. officials' discussion Thursday on competition policy issues and cross-border cooperation will contribute to the FTC’s competition policy review (see 1809210056), Chairman Joe Simons said after the meeting. “High-level engagement with our European colleagues enables us to deepen mutual understanding of our enforcement policies, facilitating greater convergence and efficiency in the review of trans-Atlantic transactions and conduct.” Simons met European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and Assistant U.S. Attorney General Makan Delrahim in Washington, where they discussed digital markets, multilateral framework, data protection, vertical mergers, unilateral conduct and merger cooperation. Such work is "essential to ensuring competitive markets in the increasingly interconnected global economy,” Delrahim said.

The World Customs Organization should continue to use the Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate (SAFE) Trade for e-commerce rather than create a set of entirely new standards for that purpose, said Christa Brzozowski, Department of Homeland Security deputy assistant secretary for trade and transport. Brzozowski spoke Monday on a panel about the WCO at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Government Affairs Conference. “We question whether there is value in creating sort of two distinct rules of the road, two distinct sets of tools for 'traditional flows' and 'e-commerce flows,'" she said. Instead, DHS would like to see the WCO “look and harken back to the bedrock principles of SAFE and not relitigate, not readjudicate, things we've spent a lot of time and effort to develop, but really try to identify those areas -- be it risk management, be it data, be it partnerships -- where the key characteristics of e-commerce and digitalization requires us to perhaps amend or update some of the compendium tools, ” Brzozowski said. There's also talk of a pilot to prevent counterfeiting and piracy, said Geodis’ Mary Jo Muoio. “This pilot is working with maritime transport industry to raise awareness, encourage them to know their customers" and “enhance their own risk profiling and information sharing” to prevent intellectual property rights violations, she said.

Congress needs to “instruct” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to bring a World Trade Organization case for violating WTO rules against unfair trade practices, testified Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Rob Atkinson Wednesday before the House IT Oversight Subcommittee. Congress should “take a hard line on limiting most Chinese investment” in the U.S., including in Chinese-backed “tech accelerators,” said Atkinson. He urged limiting “ongoing science and technology cooperation” with China, "especially considering that much of that cooperation is lopsided,” he said. The Trump administration placed Trade Act Section 301 tariffs “on a wide array of Chinese exports in an effort to bring the Chinese government to the negotiating table,” said Atkinson. “It is not clear if this approach will succeed.” The “most important step” the U.S. can take is develop a “joint campaign with our allies” to curb bad Chinese behavior, he said, to make "it more likely that China feels like it has no choice but to play more by the rules.”

Coping with the U.S.-China trade war “continues to be a moving target,” said Mark Mondello, CEO of contract manufacturer Jabil on a Tuesday earnings call. “You wake up one day, there’s a tweet, you wake up 48 hours later, something else is going on,” said Mondello. “It’s a very complicated issue in terms of what’s going to be, how bad will it get.” There’s some “conversation” in the supply chain that the trade war is “just going to be kind of a little bit of a tit for tat, and then there’s people that have the opinion that it could extrapolate to something much bigger,” he said. If U.S. tensions with China “escalate in a way that we don’t anticipate, but if they were, it absolutely is going to affect our business, as it will everybody’s,” he said. Mondello personally and in dealing with customers tries “not to get too obsessive about how bad things can get,” he said. “We do planning scenarios internally on what we would do, but assuming this thing doesn’t blow up in a big way, I think Jabil’s really well-positioned.”

Tariffs took effect on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, including duties the tech industry fought unsuccessfully (see 1809120049). China retaliated later Monday with tariffs on $60 billion in imports from the U.S. President Donald Trump has threated to “immediately pursue” a fourth installment of tariffs on $267 billion worth of additional Chinese imports as a countermeasure. Micron and Voxx (see 1809210002) are among those accepting tariffs as a fact of life and increasingly turning their sights toward mitigation strategies. “Product-specific” exclusion requests are another option, emailed David Cohen, customs law expert with Sandler Travis. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative had sought exclusions on the first two rounds of tariffs that took effect July 6 and Aug. 23. “No decisions have been made on the thousands of requests,” Cohen said.