Re: [nc-deletes] Revised draft recommendations

["John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <john@johnberryhill.com>]

From: "Dr Eberhard W. Lisse" <el@ac.lisse.na>
>
> Technically there would be no dispute any longer as soon as the old
> holder didn't renew, right?

That is correct, and in parallel with this effort, I have suggested a "no
contest" response to be included in the UDRP.

The thing is, if the Respondent doesn't renew during a dispute, that fact
does not entitle the UDRP Complainant to obtain registration of the domain
name.

To one way of thinking, one could say, "Oh, then, just give it to the
Complainant".   But whether or not the Respondent responds at all, the
Complainant has to prove their case under the Policy in order for the Panel
to order a transfer of the domain name to the Complainant.

If you say, "Oh, then, just give it to the Complainant", then what you have
is not the UDRP.  What you have is, in fact, a way of short-circuiting the
Wait List Service.  You see, if you want an expiring domain name, and you
find that someone has already taken the WLS slot, then your solution is
simple - you file a UDRP complaint.  Now, who gets the domain name?   The
person who already paid to be the first in line when it expires?  Or the
person who wanted it badly enough to pay more for a UDRP - even if they
*don't* have a trademark of any kind.

I know that many of the good-hearted people here, and on the UDRP Task Force,
don't tend to normally think about how well-intentioned rules can be
perverted to work odd results... But there is reason to believe there are
situations where the UDRP - even as it is - has been used collusively between
"complainants" and "respondents" for purposes that are not apparent on the
surface.  Turning the UDRP into "Wait List Plus" is an unintended result of
problem that can simply be handled by making it the Case Manager's
responsibility to check the expiration date and notify the parties.  UDRP
Case Managers are really good at following and enforcing rules - that's their
job.  Registrars' jobs should be to simply run a simply understood system.
Keeping registrars out of the rule interpretation business is good for
everyone.

Another example of the law of unintended results at work here is if you
combine whois-accuracy deletes with the Wait List Service.  You want to keep
fake whois data?  Okay, that's simple.  You register your fake domain *and*
you take out the WLS slot on that name.  Now, you want to complicate the
deletion process by making sure that whois-accuracy deletions can't be
rescued by the miscreant.... So what?  The miscreant gets the same name back
through the WLS, and immediately takes out the same WLS slot again.  It is
okay if you want to set up the system that way, but it is going to be the
same people who are making the same complaints next year, when they realize
it takes about five minutes to figure out how to get around the policy that
it took them five months, and imposed complicated rules on the registrars, to
formulate.

Keep it simple.

Some of these "solutions" sound like a plastic surgeon contemplating the next
operation to "fix" Michael Jackson's nose.  You know how a nose gets that
way?