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."

Comments

yeah, but...

[checkitout]

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.

Re:yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I too am annoyed by domain name speculation, but it really is no different from most capitalistic enterprises.
After you condemn "sqautters" as companies "whose sole purpose is to try and resell the domains for a higher price than they bought them for," try substituting, say, the word "corn" for the word "domain.s" Does the statement still make sense? I don't think so.
Do you condemn a company that buys corn, which they deviously have no intention of eating themselves, and then selling said corn for a higher price than they bought it for?
There is really no difference in the two scenarios here. These arbitrations are meant to steal the investments of companies and individuals who were simply smart enough to get in early on a trend. As annoying as that might be, we have to promote and defend an even playing field in trade and not just hand over assets to big companies every chance we get simply because they can afford influence and expensive counsel.
Now off to the cafe to buy coffee from a scalper barista.

The article talks about paperwork?! Why YESSSSSSS!

[almound]

I'm having trouble just transfering my domain PERIOD! God only knows what kind of BS I would get if some mega-corporation decided it wanted my domain. Geesh...look what I got back even when I attempted to comply with this mafia's hoops of fire:

***********
Thank you for contacting VeriSign.

Your fax request was received, however, we have noticed the following problems. The sections marked by an "X" are missing information or have been incorrectly completed. Please make the necessary corrections and resubmit your request.

*The authorization letter should be on the organization's letterhead as stated in our database.

*The authorization letter did not reference a NIC-tracking number and/or a domain name. An example of a NIC-tracking
number is NIC000414.1a2d.

*The authorization letter referenced a NIC-tracking number that is either invalid or incorrect. Please provide the
appropriate NIC-tracking number for your modification request. An example of a NIC-tracking number is NIC000414.1a2d.

*There was not a template attached to the tracking number.

*The authorization letter did not contain a statement of authorization.

*The authorization letter was not signed.

*The authorization letter was not accompanied by a signature and title of an individual with the authorization to legally bind the registrant. This authority is generally held by an officer of the company, or someone with one of the following titles: Owner, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer, President, Senior Vice President, Vice President, Director, General Manager, General Partner, Managing Director, Sole Proprietor, Treasurer.

*The authorization letter was not accompanied by proof of the registrant's identity, such as a copy of a driver's license, passport, military ID, university ID, etc. Please be sure to enlarge and lighten your photo-copy so that your transmission will be legible.

*The authorization letter was not accompanied by proof of the registrant's address, such as a copy of a utility bill or phone bill that establishes his/her address as stated in our database.

*The fax is missing pages or is illegible.

Due to numerous attempts to corrupt files of domain records by unauthorized persons, if any of the above items is missing the faxed request will not be processed. We regret the inconvenience, however, it is necessary to protect the integrity of our clients' registrations.

Please be sure to re-send your fax to 703-326-7000 with the following information:

a) If the domain is registered to a company, it must be on company letterhead.
b) If the request is to update a contact record or if it is for a domain that is owned by a person , a photo-copy of a state issued ID or passport. Please be sure to enlarge and lighten your photo-copy so that your transmission will be legible.
c) Tracking # of your original email request to our hostmaster---see above
d) Signature and Title of Company Officer or Contact who can take legal responsibility.
e) Phone number and email address.

Best regards,
Kwame Am
VeriSign, Inc.
http://www.networksolutions.com

**********

Whatever you do ... DO NOT subject yourself to this kind of treatment by using a mafia like that which scrawled its name across the above communication. Treat yourself better than that.

Google formalize search

[bstadil]

I wish Google would somehow formalize the search for domain names, so we could reduce this issue. I only type in domain names for very few sites, where I know the URL by heart. Most of the time I just hit Google and 9 times out of 10 the first suggestion is what I am looking for. Opera has the Google search box next to the URL address box so its almost as easy.

Re:Google formalize search

[morcheeba]

And don't forget that Konqueror has a similar feature: type "gg:" before the search terms to do a google search. Also helpful,"dict:". It's all under "enhanced browsing", under "Settings/configure konqueror"

Re:Google formalize search

[The Pim]

I wish Google would somehow formalize the search for domain names

It's an interesting idea, but it can't work. At least, that's my conclusion.

Obviously, you can (and many do) already use google in preference to URL's by your own choice. But you are probably thinking of a system by which companies, etc can advertise a google URL, eg google://myco (and thus stop suing "little guys" over domain names). This URL would direct the browser to google "myco" and jump to the first hit.

Now, imagine a company considering using google URLs's.:

myco: So if people type google://myco, they'll get to my web site, even if we don't own myco.com?

google: Sure, as long as myco is the top rated hit for that keyword.

myco: And the ratings are determined how?

google: By scanning random web pages and running them through our proprietary algorithms.

*click*

The alternative, of course, is that google can promise myco the top slot (for a price). But then google is effectively jut an alternate registrar, with even less accountability.

Reversing cause and effect?

[Bowfinger]

I don't see how this study provides much useful information. There are two reasons that complainants may win most cases. The article suggests that it's because the judges are biased. It is just as likely that the complainants win most cases because their complaints are valid.

I'm not suggesting that the process it truly fair. Like just about everything else these days, I'm sure the playing field is slanted heavily in favor of commercial interests with deep pockets. I just don't think there's enough information here to prove bias.

The study would be more meaningful if it focused on complaints where the defendant had a plausible justification for keeping a domain. I don't know how you can do this objectively. If you make subjective decisions about which complaints are included, it would color statistical analysis of the data.

At a minimum, I'd like to drop the no-brainers before tallying results. It's pretty obvious to me that Pepsico should have the rights to pepsi.com, pepsicola.com, and pepsico.com. It's a unique name, it shouldn't be a surprise that the judges would rule in Pepsi's favor. I'd like to know how they rule on names like pepsi-sucks.com or pepsi-lovers.com, and on names that could legitimately belong to a number of entities, for example abc.com or johnson.com.

Anyone have better information?

Re:Reversing cause and effect?

[edwdig]

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.

Re:Reversing cause and effect?

[dkleinsc]

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?

Money

[Jucius Maximus]

Domain name registrars and company are in this business to make money. And considering the tight competition in the market for domain name services, this is not surprising.

The thing is, even if the process was changed to favour the other side of the argument, it would still be biased and a problem would still exist.

I think that this is a strong reason for having a real 'cyber-court' so that technology and internet issues can get judged without having to worry about judges and juries who don't understand technology or the issues. I mean, the current law (and media) system knows its way around fraud/murder/typical crimes cases very well, but the number of judges that understand technology issues, I would expect, is very small. But if governments stepped up and formally came up with a group with the knowledge and tools to solve problems that traditional goverments know little or nothing about, then we would be one step closer to having an internet and legal system that was more in favour of the people in the right as opposed to the people with the money (although sometimes those groups overlap.)

Sounds Familiar?

[rakeswell]

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?

Scrotor?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sent $5 to some guys to register scrotor.biz, my new domain, because, I own a small business and I am really looking into profits because, the future is in the dot bizs today.

Heck, I'd better had given this monay to subscribe to the new slashdot subscription system (altho I really like the big ads). The dudes, just stole the name, registered scrotor.biz for themselves and now ask $1000 for it.

Posting anonymously, because I don't want to reveal my name nor the name of my company.

This happened to one of my buddies

[Ali Jenab]

One of my close friends had owned a very desirable 3-letter .com domain since 1994. He had received several (pitifully small) offers from a large corporation to purchase the domain name, but he had no interest in accomodating their demands. Sure enough, the company dragged it before ICANN not once, not twice, but three times before they got the result they wanted. After spending a few hundred dollars on attorneys' bills, my friend gave up and dropped the matter.

Now, since he makes over $100k a year as a consultant, he gives generously to the EFF and is a vocal opponent of ICANN and their pro-corporatist domain dispute rules. He is actively working for change in the system, and although the road is long, I am confident that someday we will win this battle.

/ali

Use Dotster or Register.com

[bstadil]

Verisign/ Networksolutions is a nightmare (I think by design) if you want to make changes. The paperwork is as you pointed out endless. The alternative registration companies is doing an excellent job of handling the Byzantine requirements from Networksolutions. If you have a domain name and want to get back in control, you can have them transfer it for $13 or so. If you don't like the service provided by said Registrar, at least you can now transfer at will.

Re:The article talks about paperwork?! Why YESSSSS

[Kamel Jockey]

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.

Authorities bastardized words for one use

[Garry Anderson]

First off - trademarks are a good thing - for consumer and business.

Fact: UDRP is bull* propaganda.

For one thing, it goes against Unfair Competition Law - they give priority to one business above others, who share the same word(s) or initials. For another they abridge the use of words to the people.

I have been in contact, for quite some time, with US and UK authorities (and lawyers) on these domain and trademark problems.

Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over.

MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country.

For example, the World Trade Organization - WTO shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone. The same with any initials, International Trade Centre - ITC, International Monetary Fund - IMF etc., etc., etc.

Same for any word apple, ball, cat etc., etc., etc. They all are shared by many other businesses.

The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization and the United States Department of Commerce know the answer to exclusively identify ALL trademark domains.

It would allow ALL to use their trademark, without 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off'.

Based on all evidence, I believe the authorities are corrupt. If they truly wanted rid of these problems, why do they not use the solution?

People and small non-trademarked businesses could then use domains without these excuses being used to take away (steal) their legal property in UDRP.

The simple solution was ratified by honest attorneys - including the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III, UN WIPO panellist judge.

Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see - no connection with United Nations WIPO.org.

Look at 2600

[kiltedtaco]

Just look at all the crap 2600 had to go thru. (http://www.2600.com)

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/gov /u s/edu

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.

Wow

[NiftyNews]

Wait a minute, so you're saying that the people with money are influencing the people with power?

Stop the presses, I don't believe it.

Re:Fuck you, Mister Malda.

[unitron]

"...You can use ... Amateur radio to get your email, or neo-UUCP."

Now there's an idea, an internet where you have to have some technical knowledge and ability (and prove it to the satisfaction of the FCC or your country's equivalent regulatory body) to be able to play. Should cut down the jerk factor considerably.