Dear All
I have had a long chat with WIPO concerning our
proposals. Their comments on our proposals are:
1. easy to implement from their end as
they generally inform the parties of the expiry date anyway.
2. although generally registrars inform
them of the expiry date when they respond to the verification request,
this isn't one of the things which registrars have to confirm. So we
should amend our rules to include this.
Additional comments/alternatives
They commented that currently most registrars
pay the renewal fee themselves on the relatively rare occasion that a
domain is about to lapse during UDRP proceedings. From the large
registrars Tucows is the only one that doesn't do this. They
commented that it might be cheaper from the registrars' perspective to all
adopt this approach (of renewing themselves) rather than what we were
proposing. Their reason for saying this was because of the hassle of
dealing with refunds (which they have some experience of due to .info
sunrise challenges). This is something which the registrar
constituency should give some thought to. The only cases where the
registrar would lose out under this scenario is where the complainant
loses (so doesn't get to renew) and someone else snaps the name up using a
different registrar before the complainant has the chance to register
it. I think if we end up going back to this sort of system, the
whois data should be amended to show that it is on hold pending UDRP
proceedings.
One concern they had was that under our system
we are effectively forcing the complainant to stay with the same registrar
if they win - or they have to pay twice.
More fundamental was a question they raised as
to what should happen to the UDRP proceedings where the registrants opts
not to renew the domain. They suggested that the domain should go by
default to the complainant. I know we discussed this and someone
(probably John) raised the point that a default scenario in these
circumstances would be open to abuse. I think that is unlikely for
the following reasons:
1. A udrp complaint goes through a
formality check prior to being accepted - therefore if there is not prima
facie case made out (eg there is no right claimed), it is
rejected.
2. A udrp complainant when deciding to
initiate an action would not know whether the domain name was going to be
renewed. If they guessed it wasn't it would be far cheaper to file a
WLS than to file a UDRP claim.
Therefore, I would certainly support a
simplified rule that the if the respondent hasn't paid 30 days after the
renewal grace period, the domain goes to the complainant and if the
complainant chooses another registrar, they have to refund the original
registrar's renewal fee.
--
OK, it
would have been helpful if I'd discussed this with WIPO before now, but if
you would like me to draft a couple of paragraphs saying "Alternatively,
this problem could be solved by ...." I would be happy (well that's
slightly too strong a word given what else I have to try to get done
today) to do so.
Regards
Jane
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