More details about URS and National Arbitration Forum

Pricing not set, but technology paved the way for inexpensive service.

Last week ICANN announced that it appointed The National Arbitration Forum as an administrator of the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS).

URS is a faster and cheaper way to take down an infringing domain name than a UDRP. While faster and cheaper, it doesn’t result in the transfer of a domain when the complainant wins.

ICANN posted the two page memorandum of understanding between it and National Arbitration Forum (NAF), but it didn’t give many details.

I reached out to Kristine Fordahl Dorrain, Esq, Director of Internet and IP Services for NAF, to learn more.

Dorrain said NAF has not announced pricing for URS yet, but it will be between $300-$500.

While UDRP providers initially argued that a sub-$500 domain remedy would be very difficult to achieve, NAF later changed course.

In an email, Dorrain told Domain Name Wire that technology helped keep the cost low.

“We are leveraging our technology to automate many of the more manual UDRP functions in URS, so that is going to help us keep the cost down,” she wrote.

Indeed, all participants in a UDRP (complainant, respondent and panelist(s)) submit and receive all information through an online portal.

Either party in a URS case can appeal and they may file a UDRP on the domain after the URS.

There is no rule that states a UDRP cannot be handled by the same provider that heard a URS on the same domain. However, NAF is drafting Supplemental Rules that will require a completely different examiner/panel in this case.

URS only applies to new top level domains (for now).