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Domain Name Dispute Process Called Into Question
Chemist109 writes "The Register has an article about a study of the domain name dispute resolution process. The study accuses domain arbitrators of "actively choosing judges who favoured complainants (trademark holders)." Since the complainant in a domain dispute is allowed to choose where a case is heard, this ensures the arbitrators continued revenue."
Judges should be chosen together by both parties.
Stupid ads
Why do they have to be so big?
Oh well.
I'd rather see it go to the trademark holders than to the domain squatters. It's ridiculous how many domains have been eaten up by company's whose sole purpose is to try and resell the domains for a higher price than they bought them for. It's much like scalping.
Why does this story sound familiar?
Fair Domain-Dispute Arbitration Firm Quits the Business (Slashdot 12/05)
Here's the story the /. article links to:
Arbitration Firm Quits Domain-Dispute Business
I think it's nice to see a study validate the anecdotal evidence given by the arbitration firm mentioned in the /. story. What's odd to me is that in this system of arbitration, the parties, in essence, get to choose the judges. It makes me think of the whole wrong-headed style of journalism that's pervasive today that assumes that to do a fair story, you interview people at the extremes of an issue, and decide that the truth is somewhere in the middle, without ever considering that one or both sides are simply wrong.
Isn't this precisely why judges (int he US) are assigned to cases based on a lottery system?
All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. - Johann Sebastian Bach
You can't really blame Verisign for being a bunch of hard-asses. If a domain was transferred illegally, it could open them up to some very serious legal consequences. Frankly, I think it is a good thing that they require all this information before they will perform such an act.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
I don't know an sort of count, but if you read The Register frequently, you'll see a LOT of stories about really stupid decision in domain name cases. Like Vivendi Universal won the rights to vivendiuniversalsucks.com because "non-English speakers might not understand what sucks means and get confused." What else... I'm not positive on the details here, but I think Ford won the rights to jaguar.com from some little girl that had a site with hand drawn pictures of jaguars (the animals). I've seen plenty of really stupid decisions, and I certainly get the impression that the vast majority of domains get transferred ownership, no matter how legit they are.
What is significant, in my mind, is not the 95% of decisions in favor of the complainant, which could legitamately come from domain name squatters, but the discrepency stated between the 1-judge and 3-judge results. When the defendant gets control of half the judging panel, suddenly the panel rules in their favor more than half the time. So if we assume, that on average the cases should be decided the same way regardless of the number of judges, then this result is saying, not surprisingly, that if only 1 side chooses the judge then the judge rules in favor of that side. Gee, I wonder why that might be?
I am officially gone from
Just look at all the crap 2600 had to go thru. (http://www.2600.com)
v /u s/edu
In my opinion, the entire concept of how domain names are registered has to go. You should only be allowed ONE domain per trademark. None of this
www.ford.com/net/org/biz/mil/gov/us/edu
www.fordcars.com/net/org/biz/mil/gov/us/edu
www.ilikeford.com/net/org/biz/mil/gov/us/edu
www.fordcarsaredangerous.com/net/org/biz/mil/go
This is silly. And im still siting here without a domain because i dont wana pay 20$ a year to some company for one line in their zone file.
http://www.open-rsc.org is the only way to go.
First, arbitration is completely unregulated. The National Arbitration Forum can go down to the nearest bar and pull in drunks, give them money, and call them arbitrators. And there's nothing you can do about it.
I objected to the arbitrator I got stuck with, as he wasn't qualified under the law. Guess who judges the objections? Yep - the good old NAF. A different drunk who's on the same payroll. What we have here are the foxes guarding the chicken coop. And they could care less about your objections, the law, or any sense of fairness.
They don't have to. The NAF is a law unto itself.
Sorry for the ranting here, but I'm pissed about this scam.
You ought to be concerned too, unless you'll never sign a contract with a binding arbitration clause. More and more estential services require these now - good luck in avoiding this.
> Please explain why the solution is wrong - if you can.
. reg to distinguish from apple.72_rpm_record_label_adhesive_remover_design. reg?
;-)
First of all, you don't address the issue of unregistered versus registered trademarks. There can be 20 companies doing the same BAR business in the US using the trade mark "FOO". One company then decides to claim "FOO" as an official trademark with the US government. The other 19 companies still have ownership of their standing trade mark "FOO". You propose to give the registered company foo.bar.reg but the other 19 companies will still have trademark disputes and confusion when doing business on the Internet.
And what do you do if a country allows multiple registered trademarks as long as there is some distinguishing feature not related to the name or class of business such as the style of the logo, particular imagery, or the region of operation? Even if you build in all these attributes, what do you when a country adds a new one in the future?
Second, the class of business of a company can be ambiguous. There are companies that make literally 1000's of different classes of products. Do they receive a foo.class.reg for each of these 1000's classes? How does it reduce user confusion to have so many aliases for the same location?
There is no ontology for class naming. You give examples like "record" and "computing" but there are many aspects of the record and computing business and a company may not have the registered trademark in all of them. There may be one Apple doing record making, another doing record label making, another doing record label adhesive making, etc. How do you propose coming up with the exact class of business? How do you avoid having unusable names like apple.72_rpm_record_label_adhesive_remover_making
What do you do if you grant someone name.class.reg but the idea of what 'class' is later changes?
Industries diverge from their original intent, specialize into subindustries, or change what they call themselves on a regular basis. When the bar industry starts being called the baz industry, how do you make the change to all existing domains under bar without causing mass confusion for users? When the bar develops the baz and boz subindustries, do you delete the old foo.bar.reg and replace it with foo.baz.reg and foo.boz.reg? Won't this break existing uses of the name and cause confusion? And if you don't, won't a company only doing boz possible lose out to a company only doing baz that holds the bar trademark?
> As to being a raving nut - my logic is reasoned and rational - please explain what is not - if you can.
Based on actions people or groups take, you assign reasons for why they took those actions. You don't seem to have the necessary information to make deductions of that sort. When a group doesn't respond, you call them "cowardly". How do you know they are cowards as opposed to being too busy to respond, ordered not to, or not having finished thinking about the idea. How do you know someone is corrupt just because they disagree with you? Do you think Apple is cutting me a check for debunking you on Slashdot? What if I really just disagree with what you think? Even if WIPO tells you your ideas are silly AND they are being given big sacks of cash by some company, how do you know WIPO told you you ideas are silly BECAUSE they are being big sacks of cash by some company? "Correlation does not imply causation" as the saying goes.
> How can a post to these threads be spam - if it is on topic?
There is a moderation option "-1 Redundant". There is a reason that option exists. Posting the same thing repeatedly does not contribute to the discussion. Having the same canned reply dragged out for every story is spam because it adds to the volume without contributing anything new. Just because something is on-topic, doesn't make it desirable to share.
> The fact that you have not seen the solution before, bares witness to the fact it needs repeating - does it not?
But I didn't want to see it so it I am irrelevant to the argument that it needed repeating.
> If you do not answer these points, then you clearly are a coward - no wonder you wish to remain anonymous
I don't wish to remain anonymous but I don't participate in the user system here because I disagree with its design.