WIPO Panelists Want to Change “Bad Faith” Standard to Favor Complainants

[lennco]

I generally do not repeat articles from other blogs here at NeusNews,com. However, the following article was written by Nat at DomainArts.com. For the purpose of some brevity, I have edited the below comments, but their impact remains important for all domainers.

“Many domains held for investment are at risk of loss due to a radical new approach to the UDRP championed by some UDRP panelists at WIPO’s Advanced Workshop on UDRP Practice and Precedent held in Geneva last week.

Respected WIPO Panelist and the Workshop co-leader, David Bernstein, is a leading advocate for this new approach that changes the criteria that the Complainant must prove to win a transfer of a disputed domain. The standard since the UDRP was introduced in 1999 has been that “Registration in Bad Faith” must be proven before a domain can be transferred. Bernstein, and other panelists who share his views, are using a “Renewed in Bad Faith” standard instead.

The “Renewed in Bad Faith” standard is an open invitation to companies to employ the UDRP to try to steal your domains. As was made clear at the WIPO workshop, under the “renewed in bad faith” standard every renewal provides a panel the opportunity to look at the then current use for evidence of bad faith. Putting a domain to virtually any use other than running an established business on that domain can be viewed as bad faith. The following were all held out as examples of bad faith use at the workshop, and have been cited as bad faith use in many UDRP decisions-

● parking a domain name, whether there are infringing links or not;
● having a GoDaddy landing page on your domain, even if you make no money from it and are not aware of it;
● leaving the domain undeveloped;
● offering the domain for sale;
● having a criticism site on a domain;
● running a business on the domain, if the business is viewed as competitive with the Complainant’s.

Renewing your domain while it is being put to any of the above uses therefore could give a panel grounds to order a transfer under the “Renewed in Bad Faith” standard.......Read More

This is un F'n believable!
We are so screwed!

:td: :yell: :td:

 

[Dave_Z]

I believe it's being discussed in the thread below:

https://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?p=4568122

The original DomainArts article is cited there.

 

[markfromslo]

Not really. It will affect everyone. Because they said, if you are not developing the domain, the WIPO Nazis say that in itself is "bad faith". Failing to develop a domain is "bad faith".

I've thought about something before to maybe handle this "undeveloped domain" potential issue. What if each domain name a person owned had a simple, easy to duplicate site that just popped out news story titles/links from RSS news feeds on the subject of the domain name. No advertising. Nothing sold. That would be a developed site, no? In fact, why would it even have to have anything to do with the keyword in the domain name. It could be a generic recent news site. Seems like that would work. No?

 

[Name Trader]

The code as it is written is registered AND used in bad faith. I don't think these single panelists will get their way with this one (still a minority view imho). Any half decent lawyer should be able to argue against registered OR used in bad faith since the last renewal date. And most rich domainers will opt for a 3-man panel where the chances of a rogue decision is much reduced. It's the small domainers who might not be able to afford a lawyer or a 3-man panel which will get hosed. IMHO.

 

[Ms Domainer]

Soon, the liberals will control the internet and all who do any business.
Including domaining.

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This is not a liberal initiative; this stupidity benefits fat cat Republicans, not the small domainer like me and other members here.

The rich can fight off such nonsense by going to court, but average people cannot afford to vigorously defend their property.

If this this initiative goes through, I will probably gradually phase out of this business and concentrate on developing a few sites.

Who needs this bull crap, anyway?

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