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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