[ga] Re: UDRP study

["Paul Cotton" <paulc@joinin.com>]

Doesn't surprise me at all.

When you have a dispute service mainly presided over by people who are
making their living within the legal arena, then they are bound to be biased
towards trademark holders as that has been drummed into them as part of
their career path. It also doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the
more pro-complainant decisions that are made the better the likelihood of
future cases going to the same provider - meaning more money for the
provider and for the panellists.

The lack of any kind of review process means panellists can do pretty much
what they please with impunity.  It also shows a complete lack of regard for
the udrp itself and for the rights of domain holders in general.  Bad
decisions are not only not reviewed they are being used in future cases to
support yet further decisions that are not using the udrp rules for their
outcome.

Also, if anyone can tell me where in the udrp the panellists are empowered
to create new precedent unilaterally I would love to see it.  Makes the
whole review process prior to implementing the udrp pointless if panellists
can just make a change to its scope on a whim and then have this treated as
set in stone by future panels.

Some panellists act as though the udrp rules are of no concern to them and
they determine results based on their own perceptions.

Regards

Paul Cotton
Director
SafetyNet Systems Ltd
www.joinin.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ladi" <dnso@ladi.net>
To: "'ga@DNSO.org'" <ga@dnso.org>
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 2:37 PM
Subject: [ga] UDRP study


Published today by Michael Geist in BNA Internet Law News:

UDRP STUDY RAISES BIAS CONCERNS
A study of 3094 ICANN UDRP cases that I am releasing today finds that
when providers control who decides a case (which they do for all single
panel cases), complainants win just over 83 percent of the time.  When
provider influence over panelists diminishes, which occurs in
three-member panel cases, the complainant winning percentage drops to 60
percent.  In addition to the dramatic difference in outcome between
single and three-member panels, the study finds that case allocation
appears to be heavily biased toward ensuring that a majority of cases
are steered toward complainant-friendly panelists. As of July 7, 2001,
an astonishing 53% of all NAF single panel cases (512 of 966) were
decided by only six people.  The complainant winning percentage in those
cases was an astounding 94%. WIPO, meanwhile, has failed to assign even
one of its 1629 single panel cases to at least two panelists perceived
to be pro-respondent.  Of the 104 WIPO panelists to have decided five or
more cases, all but one have complainants winning at least 50% of the
time. Study at http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~geist/geistudrp.pdf
Media coverage at
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB998251965684550590.htm
<http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/c
ommon/Fu

llStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&vg=B
igAdVari

ableGenerator&date=20010820&dateOffset
=&hub=headdex&title=Headlines&cache_key=he
addexBusiness&current_row=15&start_row=15&num_rows=1>

AND NOW YOU CAN SEARCH THE DATA YOURSELF
In conjunction with the release of the Fair.com? An
Examination of the Allegations of Systemic Unfairness in the ICANN UDRP,
I have ported much of the data behind the study to the Web.
Udrpinfo.com features a searchable database of panelist UDRP records
along with other UDRP resources.  Beta site at http://www.udrpinfo.com

Apologies for the somewhat mutilated URLs, but I think this says quite a
bit about the way UDRB is (not) working.

~Ladi

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