Slashdot Mirror
The UDRP: Is It Un-Fair.com?
typecast writes "A study of more than 3,000 UDRP decisions by a Canadian law prof. suggests that ICANN's domain-dispute resolution process may be even more unfair than Slashdot types already believe. This article says the study confirms organizations such as WIPO and the National Arbitration Forum decide most cases in favor of trademark holders. But it also says it's clear that individual arbitrators with strong "anti-cybersquatting" records are the ones most likely to be handed UDRP cases. A copy of the study and a minimal database of UDRP-panelist stats can be found at Geist's own UDRPInfo Web site."
From the decisions I've read, a lot depends on whether the chosen judge Gets It. Here's an example that represents the worst case of a clueless arbiter. It was ruled by Mr. Michael Ophir that bodacious-tatas.com should be transfered to the Tata Group in India.
Here's the rationale, using the standard criteria:
(i) your domain is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and
(ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect to the domain name; and
(iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
i) TATA exists as a string within the domain name, thus, confusingly similar
ii) If (i), then the TATA Group has a legitimate interest in the domain, therefore the respondent does not
iii) If (ii), then it is used in bad faith. Plus, it's porn!
Judicial bootstrapping! Most judgments aren't that bad, but there are more examples like that (absolutporno.com, et. al.). It seems that porn sites are treated as a lower class.