- Impact
- 4,450
The greatest and most obvious risk a UDRP poses is a loss of ownership of a domain name. A domain owner may have spent thousands of dollars to acquire a domain name only to see a UDRP panel award it to a complainant, rightly or wrongly. In addition, a domain owner can spend thousands of dollars on a good domain lawyer to defend the right to own this domain name, win or lose.
There is at least one other less visible risk of the UDRP that harms a domain name owner, even if the domain name is not lost.
There is nothing to stop a company from filing multiple UDRP proceedings. This is especially the case after a change of ownership. If a company was aggressive about filing a UDRP one time, it is probably more likely that the company would file again if given the opportunity. Further, because I feel this way, I am quite sure others would, too, and this would hamper my ability to profitably sell this domain name if I opted to buy it.
Essentially, if active domain buyers are unwilling to pay market value for a domain name because of the previous UDRP, the value of that domain name decreases. I am not going to take a guess at how much the value would be harmed, but it could be substantial. For me to buy a domain name that is below value, it would need to be aggressively priced and I would need to be confident I could also defend the domain name at a cost that would still make the purchase a good deal.
Source
There is at least one other less visible risk of the UDRP that harms a domain name owner, even if the domain name is not lost.
There is nothing to stop a company from filing multiple UDRP proceedings. This is especially the case after a change of ownership. If a company was aggressive about filing a UDRP one time, it is probably more likely that the company would file again if given the opportunity. Further, because I feel this way, I am quite sure others would, too, and this would hamper my ability to profitably sell this domain name if I opted to buy it.
Essentially, if active domain buyers are unwilling to pay market value for a domain name because of the previous UDRP, the value of that domain name decreases. I am not going to take a guess at how much the value would be harmed, but it could be substantial. For me to buy a domain name that is below value, it would need to be aggressively priced and I would need to be confident I could also defend the domain name at a cost that would still make the purchase a good deal.
Source
