Consolidation and Changes to the Dispute Resolution Service Policy & Procedure Closing deadline: 5pm on Thursday 24 March 2016. We are seeking feedback on proposed changes to the Policy and Procedure documents that govern our Dispute Resolution Service. The Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) is Nominet’s mediation based process for resolving disputes between parties over the registration or use of .UK domain names. The DRS aims to provide a clear, quick and cost-effective process outside of the formal court system which facilitates an amicable resolution between the parties where possible, and which is accessible and fair to both those complaining and domain name registrants. The process is currently described in two separate documents called the Policy and the Procedure, which were last reviewed and updated in 2008. Scope of the current review. We believe that the DRS is continuing to be successful in meeting these core aims. In addition, the DRS enjoys a significant level of support amongst our stakeholders in the domain name industry, government and the intellectual property community. We have therefore not sought to undertake a fundamental review of our DRS policy but have instead looked to identify any areas where our Policy and Procedure were not as clear or up-to-date as they could be. The proposed changes are intended to address these issues by consolidating the current separate policy and procedure documents into a new single policy document. All changes proposed to the text are clearly identified in the supporting documents and include: • General updating to reflect the removal of fax numbers, availability of registrations directly at the second level within .UK; • Removal of the option to file hard copy documents with us; • Ability of Nominet to reject complaints which appear to be vexatious; and • Keeping the fees separate from the policy text.
YOUR FEEDBACK We would welcome your views on our new proposed Dispute Resolution Service Policy (DRS Policy) March 22, 2016 MarkMonitor applauds Nominet for its commitment to regularly reviewing the DRS against its core aims: to provide a clear, quick and cost-effective process outside of the formal court system which facilitates an amicable resolution between the parties where possible, and which is accessible and fair to both those complaining and domain name registrants. While we welcome the opportunity to recommend a few changes, overall we feel that the process has worked well to the extent that our colleagues and clients have utilized the DRS. We have found it to be an effective vehicle with a proven track record of success in balancing the interests of complainants and registrants and agree with Nominet that no sweeping substantive changes are necessary at this time. Please find here our suggestions for improvement: There should be some clarification regarding the “Respondent”. Currently, a respondent is defined as “the person (including a legal person) in whose name or on whose behalf a Domain Name is registered”. We would like to see this definition expanded to include registrations via a privacy or proxy service. This is especially important in light of the policy recommendations from ICANN regarding privacy and proxy services accreditation (which contain reference to the role of a
privacy/proxy service as “registrant” for the purposes of URS/UDRP complaints). Wherever possible, policies in .UK should mirror the policies of the GNSO as a matter of best practice. We’d also recommend that Nominet consider whether a further wording change should be made to the new paragraph 4.5, which says, “The complaint may relate to more than one Domain Name, provided that each of those Domain Names are registered in the name of the Respondent.” Since a single entity may use multiple aliases, the following may be more appropriate: “The complaint may relate to more than one Domain Name, provided that each of those Domain Names is registered in the name of the Respondent, an alias for the Respondent or an entity acting on behalf of the Respondent.” We also feel that the new paragraph 6.2, giving Nominet the ability to reject a complaint rather than require a Complainant to cure any deficiencies seems unreasonable. Rejecting complaints without a window to correct deficiencies will lead to delays, additional expense and the possibility of cyberflight and does not respect due process which has been so dutifully considered in the development of other dispute resolution systems. We request that you define “cab rank”. The meaning is unclear to us (and likely to others). Finally, we encourage Nominet to follow the Rights Protection Mechanism review currently underway through the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) at ICANN which (in part) will examine the dispute resolution services available to gTLDs such as the URS and UDRP and to integrate community policy suggestions into the Nominet DRS. As discussed above, wherever possible (taking into consideration the unique business model and structure of .UK and other ccTLDs), policies of ccTLDs should match policies in gTLDs to facilitate amicable resolution of disputes across the domain name space. Thank you again for the opportunity to comment, we look forward to working with you further on this and other issues. Best regards, Janelle McAlister
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