UDRP must have been lost in translation.
The Government of Quebec has lost a UDRP it filed against the domain name Quebec.com.
This was a no brainer case.
The three person panel found that domain owner Anything.com has rights or legitimate interests in the domain and did not register it in bad faith. Instead, the registrant registered it and parked it showing ads related to the city of Quebec.
While the panel doesn’t specifically find laches, it questions why it took 15 years to file the complaint. In doing so it takes a fun jab at the city:
In the present case, if it is assumed that Complainant has been performing its governmental duties properly, it must have been aware or should have made itself aware of the Disputed Domain Name and the way it was being used, not briefly, but for 15 years. Yet is has brought this claim very late in the piece and has not volunteered a reason for the delay or explained it, although Respondent raised the issue of delay in the Response and it is a very live issue in this case. The long delay means that with the limited forensic tools available to a UDRP panel, it is difficult to ascertain the intention of a registrant 15 years previously and in the time that has elapsed since then. That state of affairs can only weaken Complainant’s case; if it cannot prove its case on the balance of probabilities because of delay for which it is responsible and for which the registrant is apparently blameless, Complainant fails on one of its most important proofs.
I’m sure some citizens would say that the city never performs its governmental duties properly.
The only surprise in this case is that the panel didn’t find reverse domain name hijacking. The panel declined to find RDNH because it determined it wasn’t the government’s intention to “harass” the domain owner.
Given the ownership of Quebec.com, it’s no surprise that ESQwire.com defended the respondent.
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