[tag]Tom Cruise[/tag] has, unsurprisingly, won [tag]TomCruise.com[/tag] from [tag]WIPO[/tag]. And, unsurprisingly, he won it off [tag]Jeff Burgar[/tag] who is notorious for having registered hundreds of celebrities names back in 1996 and used them to redirect to his Celebrity1000.com website.
Jeff sometimes fights these cases, sometimes not. This time he did and he exposed, yet again, how flawed the [tag]UDRP[/tag] system is and why, with domain names again worth millions of dollars, this is an extremely important system to sort out.
[tag]ICANN[/tag] has, for one reason of another, delayed a review of UDRP for at least five years, despite dozens of people arguing – and pointing out in clear terms – why it has to be done. It is vital that that review is now carried out as soon as possible.
I have written an article for The Reg on this, taking the TomCruise.com decision as the framework, and briefly outlined the problems with UDRP and how far too often the panellists appear to try to find a way of coming to the pre-decided outcome as opposed to following the rules and coming to a conclusion.
For some reason, The Reg cut out a single sentence in my piece which is at the heart of the problem. It was this: “Since the panellists and WIPO itself make money from the cases brought, there is a strong financial incentive for the individuals and the organisation itself to choose in favour of the complainant.”
This is entirely true. WIPO makes more money by deciding in Complainants’ favour – usually big companies since you have to have (or at least you are supposed to have) a trademark before bringing a case under UDRP. I have outlined in countless articles over the years how the decisions reached under UDRP are incoherent, incorrect, biased, bent or just plain wrong. And the only thing that connected every single bad decision is that the trademark holder is handed the domain.
UDRP has to be reviewed as a matter of urgency. There are no excuses anymore for putting off a review. ICANN should start the process now and it should open the consultation up to the public, because this is one of the areas of the Internet in which you don’t need technical knowledge to be able to argue accurately and effectively.
