UDRP filings up. That doesn’t mean cybersquatting is increasing.
Today National Arbitration Forum released statistics about its UDRP caseload from 2010. It was up 24% from 2009 to 2,177 cases.
The group’s press release headline is:
National Arbitration Forum Reports a 24 Percent Increase in Domain Name Dispute Filings in 2010
This is an accurate and factual statement.
Compare this to World Intellectual Property Forum’s headline when it released numbers last month:
Cybersquatting Hits Record Level
WIPO’s headline may or may not be true. But the group can’t come to this conclusion based on what it was really saying — UDRP filings at WIPO hit a record in 2010.
The truth is we don’t know if cybersquatting is up or if enforcement via UDRP is up.
Given that a UDRP case was filed in 2010 only once for every 40,000 domains registered, we’re talking about a very small sample.
I think it is clear that the reason there was an increase in cases is because people know that if they make a claim for a domain name there is a 99.99999999% chance of winning. NAF just did not make the same mistake WIPO did in the way they made the announcment, but they are just as bad as WIPO.