Tuesday, June 8, 2010

ICANN's Registration Abuse Policies Working Group Recommends Initiation of a Policy Development Process to Investigate the Current State of the UDRP

On May 29, 2010, ICANN's Registration Abuse Policies Working Group published its Final Report with regard to domain name registration abuse to be considered by the GNSO Council.

The 14 members of the group consented unanimously to the following recommendation:

Recommendation #1:
The RAPWG recommends the initiation of a Policy Development Process by requesting an Issues Report to investigate the current state of the UDRP, and consider balanced revisions to address cybersquatting if appropriate. This effort should consider:
How the UDRP has addressed the problem of cybersquatting to date, and any insufficiencies/inequalities associated with the process.
Whether the definition of cybersquatting inherent within the existing UDRP language needs to be reviewed or updated.

Interestingly, the 14 members of the group split evenly with regard to the second recommendation, with seven members in favor of View A and seven members in favor of View B.

View A: The RAPWG recommends the initiation of a Policy Development Process by requesting an Issues Report to investigate the appropriateness and effectiveness of how any Rights Protection Mechanisms that are developed elsewhere in the community (e.g. the New gTLD program) can be applied to the problem of cybersquatting in the current gTLD space.

View B: The initiation of such a process is premature; the effectiveness and consequences of the Rights Protection Mechanisms proposed for the new TLDs is unknown. Discussion of RPMs should continue via the New TLD program. Experience with them should be gained before considering their appropriate relation (if any) to the existing TLD space.

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