Price reduction for withdrawn cases could lead to more people using UDRP to get registrant data.
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) introduced new pricing options today, and one change will allow people to peek behind Whois privacy services for as little as $20 a domain.
When an entity files a UDRP, WIPO obtains domain registration information from the registrar and provides it to the complainant. The Complainant then files an amended complaint once it knows who is behind the domain registration.
After finding out the identity of the registrant, the complainant has the option to withdraw the case. Previously, WIPO returned all but $500 of the filing fee if the case was withdrawn at this juncture.
But WIPO just dropped that fee to $100 for up to five domain names. It said it has good intentions for the change:
In some cases, before the case is formally notified, a complainant immediately requests to terminate the case.
This can happen in scenarios where the underlying registrant identified turns out to be a licensee of the complainant.
This can also happen where the registrant can invoke a defense that could not have been known before the case was filed, e.g., the case is filed against a privacy (or proxy) service (sometimes called a “John Doe” complaint), but then the underlying registrant name reflects a personal name that matches the domain name, or illustrates that the registrant name matches a legitimate business that “co-exists” with the complainant (e.g., the parties use the same business name but in different countries, or to sell completely different goods).
These are all good reasons to withdraw a complaint. Indeed, some companies go forward with cases when they shouldn’t.
But by charging so little, WIPO has effectively made it easy and inexpensive to find out who is behind a domain name.
UDRP attorney John Berryhill is aware of cases in which entities have used UDRP for this purpose despite the previously higher prices ($500 at WIPO and $400 at the Czech Arbitration Court). He believes it will become more common now that it costs only $100.
Berryhill explained to Domain Name Wire:
Anyone, anywhere can file a pro forma UDRP against up to 5 domain names – it doesn’t even need to make any sense – and get the underlying registrant data from the registrar, withdraw, and only pay $100 net.
The “complaint” doesn’t need to make sense. In fact, when I file a complaint, I usually have a couple of skeletal observations but most sections are “[to be amended when respondent data obtained]”. There’s no smell test on these things. There’s also no check to see if the complainant even exists.
In other words, someone can masquerade as an intellectual property owner to find out who is behind a domain name for very little cost.
Someone who wants to buy a domain registered to a GoDaddy customer can bypass its brokerage service (about $100 plus 20%) and get the information through WIPO. The same can be said for other domain brokers.
Those are somewhat benign scenarios; someone could use it to find out who is behind a gripe site, whistleblower site, or citizen journalist publication.
WIPO also announced a new expedited UDRP processing option for an added fee.
All the more reason to put your domain ownership under a Delaware or Wyoming LLC / Corp or similar structure
This part here is really disingenuous of WIPO:
“or illustrates that the registrant name matches a legitimate business that “co-exists” with the complainant (e.g., the parties use the same business name but in different countries, or to sell completely different goods).”
If the domain name was being used by a business in another country to do something different, then that would be bleedingly obvious by, you know, looking at what the domain name does.
What a ridiculous example.