UDRP compliance. 26 June 2008. Paris, France. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: There's a lot of room up front. >>STACY BURNETTE: We're going as to start this -- there's a microphone and I'm not using it. Good afternoon and welcome to the registrar UDRP compliance workshop. If you're looking for the translation workshop, you're probably in the wrong room. ICANN has made some observations regarding UDRP compliance over the past years, and we, in conversations with some of the dispute resolution providers, have determined that possibly one of the reasons for UDRP noncompliance results from not a willful intention to not comply with the UDRP but perhaps not enough knowledge about what the rules require. And in an effort to improve UDRP compliance, ICANN will be commencing a UDRP compliance education program, and this is the first of several series that will take place over the next 12 months to increase awareness concerning UDRP obligations. And I want to share with you how we're going to proceed with this workshop. After I introduce the panelists, I will give a brief presentation, and then each of the panelists will provide presentations and then we plan to have a 30-minute question/answer period and so I would ask that you hold your questions until the end and you'll have an opportunity to ask the panelists anything you like after we conclude all of the presentations. And so without further delay, I will start the first presentation. My name is Stacy Burnette. I'm the director of contractual compliance. And the uniform domain dispute resolution policy was adopted in 1999, and it was intended to be an inexpensive and fairly quick way of resolving trademark domain name issues. The policy is incorporated by reference in the registrar accreditation agreement, which means registrars have to comply with this particular policy. The policy is between the registrar and its customer, the registrant. The UDRP verification process. I think there are some misunderstandings amongst registrars as to why this process occurs or whether they need to respond to providers when these questions are asked, and so I want to give you some information about the purpose of the verification process. Providers send -- customarily send questions to registrars because they're attempting to obtain information that they need to proceed with commencing this process, and so often they'll send registrars a list of questions and they anticipate receiving responses back. And some examples of these questions include confirmation of the language of the registration agreement, verification that the registrar is, indeed, the sponsoring registrar, a request for billing address information, and verification that the respondent is the current registrant of the domain name. And when you, as a registrar, receive this information, it's important that you respond timely so that the proceeding can commence and then after the proceeding officially commencing, it's important that the domain name is locked in order to comply with the provisions of the UDRP. And that's an area where we at ICANN receive complaints from dispute resolution providers. They'll state, "The registrar has not locked the domain name," and that is a source of problems. After receiving notice of a UDRP decision, it's important that the registrar communicate -- wait a minute. I think I -- no, no. I'm fine. I thought I skipped a slide. Sorry. The registrar is obligated to implement the decision, and the decision will require one of three things: That you transfer the domain name; that you cancel the domain name; or you do nothing if the decision was not in favor of the complainant. And after you receive notice of the decision, it's important that you immediately notify all the parties as to the date you plan to implement the decision. And I'm not sure that a number of registrars fully understand that obligation. Perhaps there's thinking that you only have to implement, but you have to actually provide notice as to how you -- or when you will actually implement the decision, so that all parties have an idea of when things will happen consistent with the UDRP decision. And the decision, pursuant to the UDRP, has to be implemented on the 11th day after the -- well, you have to wait 10 business days before you implement the decision because the -- one of the parties may file something in court, and that court order may determine that the domain name shouldn't be transferred or there's a hold or something else that the court may decide to do. And so it's important that you wait the full 10 days before attempting to implement any decision that was rendered. And the parties should inform -- I'm sorry. The registrar should inform all parties after they have taken action to implement a decision. And the most common compliance issue that ICANN faces is failure of registrars to implement decisions, and not long ago we issued a notice of breach to a registrar for this very reason. The registrar failed to implement a decision that required the registrar to transfer a domain name. And so I would encourage you to reach out for help. If you're not sure what to do, if you've received a decision and you're not sure what to do to implement the decision, you can always call ICANN and ask questions and we're available to respond to your questions because ultimately we want you to comply with this important policy. And so I'm going to turn it over to -- I'm sorry. I'm having a blank. Kristine Dorrain from the National Arbitration Forum, and she's going to share her presentation with us. And I've asked all of the presenters to provide information on the purpose of the UDRP, information regarding has it been -- has it fulfilled its purpose, information regarding are there ambiguities or areas that are not clear, and information regarding what we should do concerning the future of the UDRP. Are amendments necessary? Is it perfect as it is? Just ideas on those four topics. So I will turn it over to Kristine. >>KRISTINE DORRAIN: Thank you very much. Again, my name is Kristine Dorrain and I've been with the National Arbitration Forum for a little over three years now, so I've had kind of a lot of time to sort of watch the process and interact with the process. So I'm very happy to be here and help sort of maybe make things a little more clear for you. Stacy wanted us to first start talking about how successful we believe the UDRP has been. And I have to say that we believe that the UDRP has been very successful. And success doesn't come as a matter of so many complainants have won or so many respondents have won, but I think the success has come in in that so many people have used the process to obtain the type of results that are necessary. Whether that's a complainant or a respondent wins. The forum has handled over 10,000 ccTLD in dot US ccTLD cases. Since 1999. We were accredited at the end of 1999. The -- and actually that number, I think, is really low. I was reevaluating last night and I think it might be closer to 12,000 but I was guessing when I wrote this slide, so (laughing) that's my best guess. We've issued decisions on over 8,000 of those cases, and the rest of the other 2,000 or so have -- that were with John have more than likely settled. We don't keep statistics. In fact, we really have no way of knowing, you know, why parties withdraw. They may say, "We're going to settle" they may not. They may, you know, decide to settle and then something may go wrong. But the fact is that we believe that a good portion of the ones that have been withdrawn have settled, and we think that that is as a result of the UDRP process. But for that process, people wouldn't have gotten together to resolve the difference themselves. Okay. I'm supposed to slow down. I'm sorry. As far as the compliance goes, I think the biggest thing that we've found is register education is critical. The -- we've found that if we are able to somehow get ahold of a registrar that is not complying and explain to them what they need to do, that we have found that there is a much greater chance of getting the result we want, which basically from our standpoint is the verification that Stacy talked about or better contact with the prevailing party in order to get the domain name transferred, if the prevailing party was the complainant. It's kind of, in my opinion, useless to talk to the registrars that are purposely not complying because something I say is really not going to help. That's where Stacy's office comes in. So my message is for the registrars who just don't know what they need to do. We're more than happy to work with you and explain to you what the process is and what needs to happen next. The registrars aren't looking for e-mails from us, and I have a practical suggestion. There are a few registrars that have instituted a "UDRP at" e-mail box, and I would recommend that the registrars provide something like that, where there's a specific e-mail box where we can, as providers, send e-mails regarding verifications or decisions, or that sort of thing. That will put them all in one nice neat package for you, rather than having us try to search Internet sites for an e-mail address that might get a live person. I'm not really going to read this slide, but I just wanted to echo Stacy's comment that implementing decisions is also a problem that we've noticed as well. Again, you know, by misinterpretation, I don't mean to suggest that people are purposely not complying with the UDRP. One man's interpretation might be another's misinterpretation, so we're happy to work with people about that. However, I think that there are several places where the UDRP could be more clear. The first is regarding policy Paragraph 8, when a party can't and can't transfer a domain name. And when -- as Stacy mentioned, the verification process asks for a bunch of information, including a lock on the domain name. However, policy Paragraph 8 seems to imply and some people interpret that to mean the domain name can still be transferred up until the point of commencement. Well, requesting verification is just the first part that we as providers do. We still have to do a deficiency check, the complainant still has to have a chance to correct those deficiencies before the case can commence. It's that period in which we see a lot of cyberflying. We'll get the information -- or the case will be filed under one WHOIS information. By the time a registrar has responded, we've gotten the verification, the domain name has transferred hands. In some cases -- and Stacy wanted to talk about some really bizarre cases -- so that in one really bizarre case that I can think of, the registrar transferred hands back and forth from the original owner to the new owner three times before we were able to commence, and it was a really kind of crazy situation. So I think that's where one of the UDRP policies could be better worded, if we get around to making any changes in the process. My concept on the future of the UDRP is that it's procedurally outdated. Everyone in this audience is very technologically savvy. You operate in a business model that includes the Internet and pretty much only the Internet. I think the UDRP's requirement for mail and fax of documents is old and no longer necessary, and we would champion for a procedural update to get rid of the mail and fax requirement and switch to an entirely electronic paperless process. And then there are some other points of the UDRP, such as that, you know, the language of the proceedings being an issue. We never really know sort of how to interpret, you know, Rule 11. That's a little bit of -- a little bit confusing. Could be worded a little bit better as to whether the panel should determine the language before the case commences or after. Another sort of problem the UDRP hasn't addressed is the domain name status. As we get different verifications saying the domain name is deleted, pending delete, redemption, grace period, and those words seem to mean different things to different registrars. Every registrar I've talked to has a different definition of those words. So it would be very helpful if that information could be clarified from a provider's standpoint. . This all just sort of recaps my positive experiences. I believe my time is up, so I will pass the mic over to David. >>STACY BURNETTE: I neglected to give bio information on all of our incredible panelists, so I do want to take a few minutes to give you some information about all of the panelists. Kristine is an attorney who manages a domain name dispute program for the National Arbitration Forum. She's been with the forum for over three years, and before that managed patent prosecution for a United States division of Samsung. She also serves as an adjunct law professor and moot court coach in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota in the United States. Next, we're going to have David Taylor. David is a lawyer and partner in the intellectual property, media and technology process of the international law firm of Lovells. He is based in Paris. He specialized in Internet-related intellectual property, and in particular the protection of brands online. David leads Lovell's domain name practice, which covers the registration recovery and protection of domain names, and clients' rights in over 160 jurisdictions. David is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization arbitration and mediation center, deciding domain name disputes between parties via the UDRP. He is also an arbitrator for dot EU and the Czech arbitration court and a panelist for both Nominet, for dot CO.UK and the Malaysian domain name dot MY. >>DAVID TAYLOR: Thanks, Stacy. I'm hoping this will all work. Okay. I'm going to cover four things: The purpose of the UDRP, which Stacy had asked us to cover; ADR generally in domain names; and then move on to some experience both as an attorney, either for complainants or respondents or as a panelist; and then briefly at the end, the future of the UDRP. So whether the UDRP has fulfilled its purpose, I think we need to look exactly what the purpose of the UDRP was and is. Going back to the white paper, which is exactly 10 years old, from June 1998, it's clear that it was for cyberspace to function as an effective commercial market. Businesses must have confidence that their trademarks can be protected. And on the other side, consumers should not be misled about the source of the product or service offered on the Internet. So that's the essential background to why the UDRP is there. The idea was to provide an expensive and inefficient alternative to litigation and that, I think it does but importantly it was intended to provide intellectual property rights holders with more protection online than they get offline, and quite a -- on quite a few occasions we will see complainants coming and expecting to be able to get away with something in the online world which they certainly couldn't get away with in the offline world. It's been controversial, that's for sure. One of the claims is that it's overly weighted towards rights holders. There's a claim on the other side from rights holders, they say, "Well, we get unexpected, we get inconsistent decisions." And then there's the compliance issues which we're covering today. I've mentioned a couple of items there, fair.com, fundamentallyfair.com. These are some reports. You can find them on the Internet very quickly, and they discuss how unfair the UDRP may be, and those have been rebutted, so again, it's some very interesting reading which people can go ahead and look through, if they wish. On the compliance issues, there was a WIPO letter of the 16th of April, 2008 which went to ICANN, and there's been a response from ICANN, so both of those you can see on the WIPO sites and the ICANN sites. But generally, pretty much everybody agrees that the UDRP, whilst it isn't perfect, it certainly works. And it's working very well since 2000, and the first complaint. This is just based on the WIPO figures, but you can see that it's increased every year since 2003. Afterwards it dipped. And last year, there was the highest number of cases ever filed with WIPO. This, I thought, was just interesting for people to see. Where the complainants generally come from. The top country is the USA. Most complainants come from there when they're filing, then France, U.K., Germany, et cetera. When we look where the respondents come from, the naughty people are also in the USA, so really the USA is very naughty and very good at the same time. China's moved up into third place over last year, and Spain is moving up as well, so you can tell where the naughty people are appearing. So where is the UDRP applicable? Well, it's all generic TLDs, as everyone here knows, but it's also all of the upcoming TLDs. 53 ccTLDs actually use UDRP or a variation of it. Those are run by WIPO. But it's important now that it's not all ccTLDs. I remember attending a conference back in 2000, just after the UDRP was launched, and there the speaker said, "We expect that the UDRP will be applicable throughout all ccTLDs by the end of the year." I think you were there. It wasn't you that said that. I must admit that most people think this was going to be taken on by ccTLDs but it's important to note that not all ccTLDs do use the UDRP. If we just look at the EU without going through the details, you can see these and these slides will be on the site afterwards but there's 10 ccTLDs that have adopted the UDRP or a variation. 10 have no ADR at all. 4 are subject to arbitration. And 2 have specific ADR rules. So it can get quite complex when you're going off the UDRP route. So some experiences. Well, as counsel for complainant, a key issue we always have is: Is the UDRP appropriate? I put there we would either go down the negotiation route, the UDRP route, or LDRP for local dispute resolution policy, or consider court action. And I put the figures there. I think we probably negotiate in about 50% of occasions. 30% we would recommend the UDRP. And around 20%, court action. But in effect, some 80% of cases resolve with a cease and desist letter, so if you actually work out the figures, pretty much clients who come to us as a complainant, only 6% would actually go to UDRP. An example of ccTLD using UDRP where we were a complainant, Facebook, fairly well known, a registrant, talk beans media, limited. We sent a cease and desist, no answer. We filed up, no answer. So we filed a complaint with WIPO. There was the complaint you can see, if you go to the WIPO site, you can see the various decisions under dot ie there, for instance. That was what was at the site at Facebook.ie, so you can see "Talk beans, your face, your space." It's quite clearly doing something that it shouldn't be doing, so I think it's very appropriate for UDRP. And that's an example of a decision. So that was a transfer. As respondent, we do do quite a lot for respondents, and I think as a registrant you do have a legitimate interest in the domain name, then I think it's important to defend the case and not just default. A lot of people do just default and I don't actually think that's the best way of going about it. If you don't have a legitimate interest, then I do say to people, "Please respond to the cease and desist letter and just transfer the domain name so everyone can get on with their business." As a panelist, well, I see a lot of excellent complaints but we see some very poorly argued complaints. I had one recently where the complainant -- not that recently now but couldn't spell the word "Internet," cited many decisions which were of absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the complaint at hand, so we can get some quite interesting items. And it's all too often the registrant does not respond, which I think is a shame. As I mentioned there, you go through the case, you read it, and you think, "Well, if they had challenged the bad faith allegations or they had demonstrated legitimate interest, it would have been a tougher case to decide." On the compliance side, some examples which we've encountered, a UDRP decision sent by WIPO to the registrar in many instances we have to send or resend a copy of the action -- sorry, of the decision before any action will be taken. Whether actual registrar is a reseller. It's the main registrar that gets notified and not the reseller, so we're the ones who then let the reseller know. We've got -- we've had actually very few examples of registrars implementing the UDRP Rule 16, which Stacy mentioned, and communicating the date for the implementation of the decision. Certain registrars we've dealt with require credits to be purchased before a domain name can be moved from the account which it's currently in. And we had one problem with a large EU-based registrar not so long back where they did comply with the UDRP decision to transfer but they merely changed the contact information to that of the complainant and left it in the respondent's registrar account. Delays are probably the most worrying. Between 1 and 5 months if a registrar is being un-cooperative. When they've been provided with a decision, they can request payment of fees. We thought that example -- even though the renewal date was 8 months ahead, we've had registrars refusing to update admin-c details. We've actually been unable to communicate with registrars. We've tried English, French, German and Spanish, and still not managed to complete -- to speak to the registrar. This is not a Korean registrar, this is somebody based either in the U.S. or in Europe. We've had another one insisting on German bank details. Luckily we do have an office, so we okay. Oblige, but it gets to be quite a pain when you're trying to do something quickly and simply. And one example, we had a UDRP decision which was issued on the 25th of April. WIPO notified that on the 5th of May, which is 10 days, so a little delay on the WIPO side. It's supposed to be 3, under Rule 16. But the registrar was far worse, completely unresponsive through to the 30th of July, when we finally got the domain name transferred. Also, registrars unlocking the domain name during the UDRP process. Other issues. Certainly a big one is lawyers not understanding the transfer process. Another Lovells, we have quite a few lawyers doing domain name recovery and even our lawyers don't understand it so we have a centralized transfer department based in Paris which basically deals with every UDRP complaint and deals with the transfer. We recently spoke to a registrar which is quite interesting who was encouraging users to register domain names including multiply, T-Mobile and iPod. "They are gold in this market." So that's a registrar. The WHOIS privacy services, it's not what we're discussing but it certainly is a problem and the variation in the practice of disclosing who the underlying registrant is. Sometimes you have to file a complaint with WIPO to get it. Sometimes the registrar will provide it. It is a variation, which is quite difficult to deal with. The future of the UDRP? Well, we thought it would be great if there was a standard procedure across all registrars for transfer post-UDRP. It's probably quite difficult to do. Some suggestions or thoughts which we've had is a registrar or us can create an account and place the domain name in that account, and provide the username and password for that account systematically. And finally, possible changes to the UDRP. Translating the UDRP policy and rules to other languages. I think for all registrars to be able to read those clearly would be a good thing. A potential fast-track process if you're dealing with a serial cybersquatter or if there's no response worth considering. There's pros and cons to everything. The possibility of an appeal process. There isn't strictly an appeal process within the UDRP. You need to go to court. That's why the three panelist decisions are there, so in theory there's no need for an appeal. But in some jurisdictions, Nominet.CO.UK, there is an appeal process and that seems to have worked very well. We've also got the possibility coming up of class actions with the Czech arbitration court as a new provider. That will be tested under dot EU, and it may perhaps go across the full UDRP, but that's all for the future. Thank you very much., Stacy and everyone. >>STACY BURNETTE: All right. Our next panelist is Margie Milam. Margie is the vice president, corporate secretary, and general counsel of MarkMonitor, an ICANN accredited registrar that provides online brand protection services to the world's largest corporations. She's an attorney responsible for overseeing the creation and enforcement of MarkMonitor's intellectual property. She also vices MarkMonitor on ICANN compliance matters including implementation of the uniform domain name dispute resolution policy. >>MARGIE MILAM: Thank you, Stacy. At MarkMonitor, since we represent major corporations, we tend not to receive UDRPs against our clients, and some of my comments are more targeted towards helping our clients implement the decisions. A lot of what David talked about earlier are the kinds of experiences that we see over and over again with respect to registrar issues and UDRP issues, so I'll be speaking a little bit about that. With regard to the effectiveness of the UDRP, when you ask the question whether the UDRP has served its purpose, I mean, it certainly has for many years. It's been a cost-effective resolution for domain name abuse. I mean, the statistics that were cited earlier are very clear. The problem is, though, that the domain monetization model has changed the landscape completely and so the sheer number of abuse that you see now targeting major brands is -- has made it so difficult for a brand holder to actually, you know, turn to the UDRP for resolution because it's so costly and so time-consuming. So that's one of the issues that, you know, we see over and over again with our clients. We also see the issue of repeat offenders, because there's a lot of registrants that are intentionally targeting major brands, and because there's so much money involved with it, they -- you know, it doesn't matter to them that it's -- that they're facing a UDRP decision because they can earn revenue during the, you know, six weeks or seven weeks -- however long it takes -- to resolve it. So there's a problem in the -- in that there's really very little incentive to change the practice and not target major brands. There's also a problem with registrars -- excuse me -- and their affiliates serving as actually domainers. A lot of registrars on the retail side register domain names on behalf of their company for themselves or for their affiliates, and so, you know, most to most registrars, this is not a problem. You know, the major registrars, retail ones, are very good about complying. It's just there are, you know, certainly some registrars that have financial incentives, you know, not to, you know, cooperate with UDRP. And so that's the -- I think a problem from a compliance perspective that, you know, ICANN should take a look at to make sure that, you know, that's -- that registrars are continuing to understand the rules and comply with them. And also, in a -- from our perspective, you know, it's very difficult with the issues of domain tasting to have -- have the UDRP even, you know, provide an effective remedy. With domain tasting, when a name is, you know, registered and dropped within five days and then, you know, reregistered and dropped, it's very difficult to even identify who the true registrar is, in order to commence a UDRP proceeding. So those are the kinds of, you know, issues we have with respect to whether or not the UDRP is effective and continues to, you know, serve the purpose that it was intended for. I'll also talk a little bit about some of the gaps within the rules and the ambiguities. Here are some of the topics: Proxy and privacy services. It was covered earlier, but the question really is, who is the correct registrant for a UDRP proceeding. The rules were drafted at a time when proxy registrations and privacy registrations weren't really, you know, as part of the marketplace, and so I think that's something that could be clarified. Also the renewal and expiration issues. With respect to our clients, oftentimes they'll see a domain name that's subject to the UDRP dispute and it actually won't be renewed or it will be actually deleted during the process, and so that's something that could be clarified as well. Just talk really briefly about what's happening. Because of the domain monetization issue, the instances of abuse are skyrocketing. At Markmonitor we have done some studies to really see what kind of abuse is targeting the major brands. And we only looked at the top 30 brands in the world. And during a one-week period in 2007, we found that the average amount of cybersquatting targeting these major brand were 387,000 instances in one week. The only reason I point this out is just to confirm what I was talking about earlier that the volume is so significant that the UDRP really is not a useful remedy for major brand holders at this time. I can talk a little deeper about the ambiguities with respect to proxy services. Again, because the rules were drafted before the proxy services were actually adopted, the rules don't really help you understand who should be the correct respondent. It sounds like the providers have actually developed procedures that deal with this; but for those who may not be familiar with actually filing UDRPs, it would be nice to have that information available. The other issue is what a registrar is allowed to do during the UDRP proceeding. Currently, you're not supposed to make changes to the actual registration, but the rules themselves have this kind of catchall language I have cited here on the slide that, basically, says the registrar can also cancel a domain name registration in accordance with their agreement and other legal requirements. This is sort of a loophole that registrars can, basically, use to not renew a name or transfer it. I think that's something that, you know, ICANN can look into to clarify what a registrar can do during the proceedings. Some of these issues have already been discussed, so I won't go through all of them. I think the issues that we see over and over again have to do with the fact that there are domain names being deleted during the proceeding or transferred. And if a domain name is transferred, oftentimes the new registrar doesn't know what to do with the proceeding because they've never been notified in the first place that there was a proceeding. And so that's another issue that we've seen that even though the rules specify that there can't be a transfer, they actually, in fact, do happen at times. And, you know, some thought needs to be given as to whether the new registrar even knows that there is a proceeding and what they need to do. And then the area where we see continual problems is the implementation because once there is the decision as David pointed out, there is no way for the registrar to -- or for the successful applicant to sometimes get the name in their hands. The domain name -- the ownership record may not be changed. They may not have an account to actually, you know, make any changes into the DNS or the record. And they have very little ability to transfer the names with respect to some registrars. And so I think that's another area that would be useful, if you could have registrars understand that they need to cooperate after the decision has been made in order to allow the name to be transferred to the successful, you know, company. So, I guess, I'll close with the suggestion that ICANN should come up with a registrar implementation advisory. I think that if you could come up with something that you distribute to the other registrars so that they understand the rules during and after the UDRP proceeding, I think that would make it a lot easier to manage the process on behalf of the brand holders. >>STACY BURNETTE: Our next speaker is John Berryhill. John is an intellectual property attorney who has represented complainants and respondents in the UDRP proceedings. John also advises registrars on compliance issues. John has served on the GNSO UDRP review task force and the GNSO name deletion policy task force. Are we having a technical problem? >>JOHN BERRYHILL: It is unplugged. >>STACY BURNETTE: I didn't share this with the panelists, but I do want them to be prepared and start thinking about with the introduction of new gTLDs, what impact do you think that's going to have on the UDRP? So I want you to think about that and after all the presentations, we'll ask you to comment on that. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: I think that the panelists so far have done a very good job on touching -- >>STACY BURNETTE: Speak into the mike. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: -- touching on the major areas where registrars, ICANN and UDRP policy participants grind gears with each other. And I know that while UDRP disputes are extremely important to us as intellectual property attorneys or as dispute resolution providers, from the perspective of a registrar, UDRP disputes are not commonplace events relative to the rest of their business. With 70 million domain names in dot com and something on the order of 4,000 disputes a year, UDRP disputes affect a very minute fraction of domain names. So while we tend to focus on this as being our world, from the registrar end, these things come in. The registrars are not staffed by lawyers. There are interpretational issues that even lawyers argue about in the policy. Some of these gear-grinding events arise from simple misunderstandings. To the extent that we would ever want to revisit procedural issues in the UDRP, it is very important that the UDRP needs to follow the KISS rule of design, keep it simple, stupid. This is something that people are going to have to understand in a variety of languages, places and situations and it is a rare event for registrars. The UDRP has been a tremendously successful process for those classes of disputes, those types of disputes which it was intended to address as a lightweight administrative procedure. And, you know, one of the major criticisms is that, well, it doesn't solve this problem or it doesn't solve some other problem. I think we need to stay focused that it solves the problem that it was designed to solve very effectively, and that's true for domain registrants as well. There are many domain registrants who have had UDRP challenges who would not have the ability or wherewithal to participate in a foreign court procedure or a remote court procedure. And they are able to successfully defend their legitimate interests under the UDRP. But, you know, once you get these things into the hands of lawyers beyond a simple procedure, you end up with proceedings that look like this. This is an actual complaint that was filed in a WIPO domain dispute proceeding for a three-letter domain name. It was shipped in several boxes. It weighed about 75 pounds. And it is a lot to ask someone to digest in 20 days and it is a lot to cart in through the front door of a registrar and say, "here is something that's going on with hundreds of pages of information you can't understand and we expect you to comply." The complainant lost this proceeding, by the way. One of the things the panel said was that the volume of evidence demonstrated that the dispute was not appropriate for a lightweight administrative proceeding. On the input end of the UDRP, the issue that consistently gets raised is what happens when the domain name is filed, the registrar is supposed to lock the domain name. You have heard from successively panelists different formulations of what "locking" means. Does that mean that it is -- the WHOIS information cannot change? Does that mean that the domain name is supposed to be put on registrar lock, which is -- the term "lock" gets used among the registrars and registries to prevent transfer to another registrar. Some registrars actually will disable the domain name from resolving. They believe what they're supposed to do is disable the domain name when there is an UDRP complaint. I had a proceeding recently where the registrar was one of those registrars that shuts off a domain name when an UDRP is filed. We filed our response and then the complainant filed a supplement saying "ah-hah, the domain registrar has turned off the domain name as evidence they were doing something wrong." The behavior of registrars in these circumstances can affect the registrants as well. Additionally, with privacy services. I think we all know there are some domain names that are registered to so-called privacy services which are simply a front for mass cybersquatting. But for those domain registrants which use legitimate privacy services, there are often issues associated with the registrar notifying the registrant of the dispute. But what's interesting is that we all assume that the registrar is supposed to take some action relative to the domain name. If we look at the actual language of the policy, UDRP paragraph 8a, you have to understand that the UDRP is written in a first-person/second-person language and it is a contract term between the registrar and the registrant where the registrar is "we" and the domain name registrant is "you." And the operative term is "you may not transfer your domain name registration to another holder unless certain conditions are satisfied." It is fortunate that this is nearly universally interpreted by registrars as meaning they are supposed to lock the domain name or they can't transfer the domain name because the actual policy is that the registrant can't. And many registrars have a separate account. Because these are rare events, there are some registrars that have a separate dispute account. When an UDRP comes in, they need to disable the registrant's access to the domain name so they'll push it to an account where disputed names go. And sometimes there are WHOIS problems that come up with that. And then there's some tension between the UDRP language relating to locking the domain name and the ICANN registrar accreditation agreement, which is equally binding upon a registrar which contains language that suggests that the registered name holder, who is the entity in the RAA, has certain obligations relative to the registrant, which is the entity specified in the UDRP. So there's some drafting problems that cause some of these -- some of these ambiguities. One of them is simply who is the respondent in an UDRP dispute? And registrars have different ways of presenting this information in WHOIS. Now, I've picked a domain name here at random, ICANN.org. >> At random? [ Laughter ] >>JOHN BERRYHILL: The name of the registrant -- if their contact information on their Web site gives one name and gives one zip code, the WHOIS information for ICANN.org gives as the registrant a man named Roman Pelikh. How many people know who he is? Five people. How many people know who ICANN is? Otherwise, your meeting is in the next room. It is not apparent and obvious and universal across registration systems whether this registrant organization is some affiliation of this Roman Pelikh who runs ICANN or something else. And then we have the issue of keeping contact information up to date. Many people prior to a transfer will update their transfer -- their WHOIS information and oftentimes whose information is neglected until something important occurs. It may happen that in the course of responding, the registrants wants to notify the registrar that my zip code is not 92092. In fact, ICANN's zip code is 90292 and the registrar may update WHOIS information when they respond to the dispute resolution provider. But, you know, if ICANN can't get its WHOIS information straight, expecting the rest of the world, such as this registrant, which interestingly this domain name used to be registered through Network Solutions who is a privacy service. They changed it after a very irritating attorney brought that to their attention. >> Who is that? [ Laughter ] >>JOHN BERRYHILL: There is this joker that impersonates me on the Internet. It is terrible. But, you know, you can see, for example, when people talk about WHOIS data problem complaints, WIPO itself can't manage to get a correct phone number into WHOIS data. So the presumptions that, you know, average everyday registrants can keep this stuff straight is not always valid. Coming into the proceeding, the registrar needs to first know that there is a UDRP proceeding occurring. There has been a large proliferation of registrars. And I believe that Kristine mentioned, they are looking for contact information for the registrar at the interNIC Web site. They will get support at bigregistrar.com. They have an e-mail address that receives lots of spam, millions of dollars in European lotteries, Nigerian widows and the occasional UDRP complaint. One thing procedurally would be if the dispute resolution providers had access to the data that the registrars provide in a closed system to ICANN for providing reliable contact information. Because if the registrar doesn't know there's a proceeding, the respondent, the registrant, the cybersquatter in most cases will know about the proceeding before the registrar will and anyone that's done UDRP complaints knows what the problem is there. I'm not meaning to knock anyone, for some reason I believe that NAF has a more solid system for keeping track of data associated with the UDRP case. When I say that WIPO frequently misdirects e-mail, what I can say is that in the course of one year, last year I saw four different instances where WIPO was sending notices in the middle of the dispute to e-mail addresses other than those that were associated with the dispute. This caused a genuine issue where the respondent -- the domain was ordered to be transferred and the respondent did, indeed, proceed to file litigation in the U.S. to keep the domain name. And the UDRP complainant defendant in the lawsuit was arguing that the procedure wasn't followed because the suit wasn't filed in the required time, when, in fact, WIPO had not notified the parties of the decision uniformly. Frequently ignored UDRP rule, e-mail communications should be sent in plain text. Nearly as uniformly, the National Arbitration Forum sends HTML formatted e-mail with inline images. If you're a participant in a WIPO proceeding, you receive a series of e-mails from the case manager that says "please refer to the attached document." And it's a Microsoft Word document. If you don't have Microsoft Word or if your virus system -- virus scanning software doesn't like Microsoft Word or the file name, you won't get it. And in terms of decisions, I went through one gyration over a period of weeks with a registrar who specifically was not obtaining notice of an UDRP decision because the National Arbitration Forum uses dual file extensions on Word documents so that if the domain name was example.com, the decision will be a file name of the form example.com.doc. The problem with many e-mail systems is that dot com is determined to be an executable file for the Microsoft operating system. And these e-mails will be summarily deleted. So there are some technical issues involved with knowing who to contact and how to contact them. At the tail end, when a domain name is to be transferred, there are a number of issues that come up. Several of the panelists spoke about the registrar's obligation, which is frequently ignored, is to provide a date of implementation of the decision. And I'm a little curious about that because if the registrar says we will transfer this domain name on a date certain, what that registrar has to have, of course, by that date certain is registration data for the party to whom the domain name is to be transferred. Quite frequently, the registrar doesn't know accurately who the parties are, while I showed you that one example document where the complainant's details are in there. On top of that, you have the complainant's attorney and then you have the UDRP provider and ICANN all telling the registrar "you have to transfer this domain name" where the complainant doesn't necessarily make it clear to whom the domain name is to be transferred. If party A wins a domain name dispute and the domain name is to be transferred to party A, what usually happens is shortly after the decision, the registrar gets an e-mail from a lawyer somewhere on the planet who may very well represent party a and probably does represent party a, but the registrar has no way of knowing that. So there is a lawyer who pops up out of nowhere saying "we won this domain name dispute, transfer it to me." Because many attorneys themselves will manage the transfer process on behalf of their clients, which is a practice I generally suggest that attorneys not do unless they're extremely familiar with the process. So there is an interface that occurs from the registrar to the complainant's attorney, from the complainant's attorney to his executive level contact, to the I.T. guy somewhere down in this organization who's actually responsible for getting things done. And this communication loop does not always function effectively in toward to make sure the domain name gets transferred to where it needs to go. And many times winning complainants do not understand that there are different registrars the domain name will be registered at, for example, register.com. And the registrar will receive a communication saying, "transfer it to our Network Solutions account, ID number" so and so. Register.com has no way to push that domain name to another account at another registrar. That has to be pulled from the other side. The off code has to be provided and all this information has to go, again, from the registrar to the attorney to their golfing buddy contact down to the I.T. guy who -- you know, the golfing buddy who hired the attorney doesn't even know his name in order for this to happen. And other times domain names will be locked because of other pending litigation. Subsequent to an UDRP proceeding or any time during an UDRP proceeding, either party may file a lawsuit in a court of competent jurisdiction. Sometimes a losing domain registrant respondent will file a lawsuit, will provide the registrar with a date-stamped copy of that complaint filed with the court. And then they will proceed with whatever process is required to serve the complainant defendant. The registrar under those situations is to maintain the domain name under lock. What the registrar is not required to do and indeed shouldn't be doing is providing a docket information system for the complainant. So a lawsuit will be filed subsequent to an UDRP proceeding. The registrar will discharge its responsibility by locking the name because a lawsuit has been filed. And the complainant will continue to pester the registrar to provide information or details or filings, you know, from a court proceeding in which the registrar is not a participant. And those were the only points I had to make. >>STACY BURNETTE: Thank you, John. Our next panelist is Leena Ballard. Leena is a national from Finland and holds a Master of Laws from the University of Lapland in Finland. She obtained qualifications as a judge following training with the District Court of Tampere. Before joining WIPO in 2001, she worked at the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg. Leena supervises WIPO's case administration, contributing to the management of the roster of WIPO panelists, and the review of decisions for the center's online legal index of decisions, participating in the management and development of relations with users of the center's domain name services and with relevant organizations in the domain name area, particularly registrars. And supporting the development and implementation of domain name dispute resolution policies for registry authorities and operators. >>LEENA BALLARD: Thank you. Okay. I'm also trying to take the approach as John; namely, not so legal and more registrar-oriented. I hope I am going to succeed in that, to make it less legal jargon and more understandable to people who are not lawyers in this room. So the basic idea to share some understanding on both sides, provider's side and registrar's side, it is true what was said before. Kristine said sometimes you get terms from -- terminology from registrars that you as a provider are not always familiar either. So the understanding or misunderstanding is both sided, I want to assure you. So some of this has already been said. I see that some people have joined the room afterwards, so maybe if its -- even if it is repetitive, I'm just going to go through the slides, maybe on a more speedious manner. Of course, the domain name disputes involve multi-national aspects of parties. Registrant may be from country A, registrar from country B and alleged rights holder from country C. Of course, which court to do, which jurisdiction to choose? These are all matters for the filing party. But this -- I think it's good to bear this in mind when we compare UDRP and the court system. What is behind the success of the UDRP in certain types of disputes as has been discussed before. The facility of UDRP for the cases that it has been designed for is that there are, well, currently four -- three functioning UDRP providers so far. The CAC, Czech Arbitration Court, is going to start toward the end of the year. Whereas, in traditional litigation, you have the complexity of knowing where to go. Also, the issue raises which policy, which legislation. And the UDRP is the same with all these providers. UDRP has been a success because it is an online procedure with no physical attendance facilitating the procedure making it more efficient. Moderate fees, no obligation to use lawyer. It is a relatively short system. With some of the procedural issues we are facing currently, it can go all the way to six months. That's why we are here also to discuss how to improve these procedural issues. And so the immediate enforcement, of course, is the beauty of this thing, which is done by the registrars. And there are no complicated issues, while there are exceptions that may be discussed later on. So generally the answer is yes, UDRP has met the expectations and it's a very functioning system for certain type of disputes. And as was said before, there are over -- well, 10,000 in NAF and we have a bit more to 13,000 cases, so that makes it 20,000. I don't know about the providers that have shut their doors now, but it could be closer to 25. I don't know if Stacy has any figures on the overall numbers of UDRP disputes. So you can see the numbers are pretty high, even though it might be a small percentage of all the registered domain names. Just some numbers in different kind of chart as to one David showed earlier. And the outcome of cases, while this is, of course, the -- the big transfer rate is translated by the fact that the scope of the policy is such that it is directed for abusive registrations. And, okay. To come really to the concrete stuff. Who makes UDRP happen? That would be, of course, the filing parties, providers. Independent panelists render decisions. But, first of all, registers because that's where we have the information to start proceedings correctly and that's where the decision is then implemented by the registrar as well. So the registrars' role is primordial. We already discussed these items, providing correct and timely information is very important, especially the status of the domain name which is not in the WHOIS; billing contact that is not in the WHOIS; any language issues in which language is the registration agreement; and also possibly the privacy shield disclosure. Securing the locking of the disputed domain name. Okay. It was discussed that you may not transfer the domain name, as the registrant, but also the same clause continues. We, as a registrar, reserve the right to cancel any transfer that has been made, you know, contrary to the rules, and so it might just be more practical for a registrar and we see that this is what, in practice happens. The majority of the registrars lock the domain name, so that it may not be transferred. And so the informing of the date of implementation, I would not be so pessimistic. We have seen that there are e-mails coming from the registrar, some indicating the date of implementation, but of course not in all cases. And then the implementation after the 10 business day period which is to be calculated in the location of the registrar. Okay. So some of the stuff has been already said what can go wrong, okay? All human activity has human error, so there's no problem there. But it's just good to know, for example, to have a look at the ICANN expired domain deletion policy. There we feel, for example, that the language there is not really perfectly drafted because it says no deletion or expiry is allowed during a pending proceeding and there, too, you know, lawyers love to argue when does a proceeding -- can be considered pending. So some specification there would be most helpful. And of course the omission to implement the UDRP decision. That is most frustrating for the parties if they've gone through the trouble of having filed -- or gone through the proceeding, the panelists has done work, a provider has done work, and then there's no implementation. We would -- if there are any trademark owners in the -- or complainant -- future complainants, just to invite you to follow up on the implementation. This is something that maybe lawyers are not always familiar with. They just think that, "Okay, we won the case, there's nothing else to do," but really it would be good to follow up on the implementation. Now, a bit from the provider's side how we are frustrated from time to time in these cases where repetition is happening. Domain names are transferred during the pending proceeding or really upon notice of the dispute to the registrar, the registrant information by some funny guy is changed to refer to that of the filing complainant, and so it's really great to start a proceeding against the complainant. But really, a registrar has to write to restore that information and to provide us the initial information. Another problematic with legal consequences can be the mutual jurisdiction issue. Namely, that the registrar's registration agreement does not include an appropriate submission to the jurisdiction at the location of the registrar, and this -- of course it causes (inaudible) complainants to complain as they need to amend -- or submit a new complaint or amendment, causing legal expenses, but also, of course, delaying the procedure, which is unnecessary because if the registrars would include in their registration agreements the simple -- I mean times see identical texts taken from the registrar accreditation agreement, namely the 3.7.7.10. It would be very useful to have it there. We see that registrars have paragraphs referring to disputes between the registrant and the registrar themselves. I mean, of course if a fee is not paid to each jurisdiction, does the registrar want to go with the registrant. That's fine, you can cover all that you want, but for the purposes of the UDRP, we need you to refer to disputes concerning the use of the domain name and not the registration agreement, and so the line where a registrar is located would be fine. Okay. So as to the future of the UDRP, while I believe it would be not wise maybe to open up the process at least on too light of grounds, as the UDRP is really a functioning mechanism maybe we can find alternative ways to make things work better, and some of the concerns that we should look into and work out is the increasing number of registrars, and we believe that there would be room for ICANN to actually try to inform better, as was discussed already, maybe through an advisory compilation of registrars' obligations vis-a-vis UDRP, so it's simple for a registrar that for the first time ever -- and maybe never again -- will have a UDRP dispute. We totally understand that your main role is not to be a registrar for UDRP-related matters every time. You do basically other stuff during the day. So it might be useful to have a short sort of list of all the obligations that are now split into different places and are not always easy to understand. Maybe it could be just something informal, referring to the obligations in plain English because it's true, as myself I'm not English mother tongue, sometimes things can be difficult to understand, so to provide something helpful in that way. Unfortunately we do note some -- well, indications in our proceedings. There are cases filed against registrars or if there's not -- no direct proof, you can clearly tell that well, you know, okay something fishy is going on here and of course the bigger picture is in front- and backrunning, et cetera, et cetera, so that is be something that would be good to cut out from the system. And so the problematics around issues that create inconsistencies such as the privacy shield matter, it would be really good to find solutions. We as a provider don't have any strong opinions how it should be dealt with as long as we would have the correct information from the registrar. Of course the trademark owners might say -- and also, well, for us, it would be maybe more efficient to go through a proceeding having already all the information before the complaint comes in, but it's open to discussion. And so positive actions. We really note with happiness that something is happening around the -- well, with discussions about the utility, about a functioning UDRP. We really welcome steps towards compliance and monitoring registrars. The mandatory training programs, while maybe not a final solution, I think maybe advisory or compilation of obligations vis-a-vis UDRP at least might be a good approach. Contractual compliance newsletter, excellent tool. There's now been, I believe, three letters. I really strongly invite you to subscribe to the letter. It's very good. The intake report system, which is meant for problems with enforcement of UDRP decisions, while it's just an online system and it sort of replaces the e-mail that you send out but still it can be a first step to something bigger, I mean, we could have more maybe report -- how do you say? -- like possibilities to submit other issues as well than the enforcement issues because contrary to what Stacy says, providers I believe -- at least my feeling at WIPO is that we have more concerns with registrar requests for confirmation of information than the implementation, because most often if there are any implementation issues, they are because, okay, unfortunately somebody was not e-mailed to or, you know, unfamiliarity with the stuff, or the complainant didn't know how to give their contact details to get the password and stuff like that. But we feel that there's a lot to do in the pre-complaint period. And then the complaint escalation process is also greeted -- unfortunately if things don't move, it's good to have a system where we can -- we can have ICANN then give notice, public notice to registrars that are not compliant all the way until the accreditation. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: You mean public notice of registrars who aren't complying with the UDRP. >>STACY BURNETTE: Use the microphone. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: Oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to suggest that public notice to the community of registrars who are not complying with the UDRP might have an unintended consequence that would be equally as bad. >>LEENA BALLARD: You're too complicated with me. [Laughter] >>LEENA BALLARD: Well, you know well what I mean, but at least that there's -- we know, for example, the public notice to the registrar where they didn't implement a decision and of course that might escalate then but -- well, that's for ICANN. Thank you very much. >>STACY BURNETTE: Thank you, Leena. After listening to all of the panelists, I hear a common theme, and that theme is: The UDRP is an effective tool for resolving trademark domain name disputes. However, there are areas that -- where the language is not exactly clear. And so I wanted to open up a question about some of the ambiguities that exist in the language, and then I want to open it up for the audience to ask questions. My first question is: Do you believe -- well, UDRP Paragraph 8, which prohibits transfers during a pending administrative proceeding, do you believe it's clear when registrars should lock the domain name concerning a dispute? Do you think that language is clear? Do you think registrars understand that obligation and when it should happen? >>JOHN BERRYHILL: In all circumstances, the domain name should be on registrar lock. That is, it should remain at that registrar. One of the weird things about the UDRP is that you have named parties, and you have a respondent as a named party, but the order itself to transfer the domain name is effective against the registrar. That is, the named respondent is never responsible for actually transferring the domain name, and there are all sorts of fun and games and arguments that revolve around who is the named respondent, but at the end of the day, if the domain name remains at one registrar, you know, for the duration of the procedure, that registrar is going to be the one that's responsible for getting the domain name to the -- you know, to the complainant. And, you know, also, one thing that frequently occurs is if the two parties to the dispute agree on a transfer or some other settlement, WIPO and NAF have developed very different, you know, sort of ad hoc ways of dealing with that. So, you know, you have a registrar, you have two parties who have come to an agreement -- this is an alternative dispute resolution process. You know, ultimately the two participants should be able to govern, you know, an agreed-upon outcome, but there are certain gyrations that we go through both at WIPO and NAF in order to implement an agreed transfer. >>KRISTINE DORRAIN: I'd like to respond to the comment that it doesn't matter -- I'm sorry, this is Kristine for the people in the back. That it doesn't really matter who the WHOIS information is switched to, because it's the registrar that transfers. From the complainant's perspective, I believe, they have to prepare their complaint against somebody who has purportedly acted in bad faith. If that information changes, the panel then goes to the WHOIS to see who is really the person there. They say, "Hey, this complaint is against John Smith. It's now listed as somebody else in the WHOIS." I'm not going to find against, you know, this person because the complaint says John Smith acted in bad faith. So I think from that standpoint, it is important for the complainant preparing the complaint to make that argument. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: Right. Well, that actually gives the panel another -- another fact for ordering transfer of the domain names, since the -- you know, for example, legitimate rights and interests, the reference point for any activity that the panel is to decide is as of the time the complaint, you know, was filed, I believe, in legitimate rights and interests it's as of the time you became aware of a dispute. But, you know, in those situations where the registrant information is, you know, being cycled or corrupted, you know, playing a game of amend the complaint, amend the complaint, you know, let's just tell the panel who has, you know, plenary powers to decide many of the procedural issues anyway, the panel can say, "You know, and in addition to everything else, you know, this thing has been churned for the purpose of preventing it to get to the panel," if that makes any kind of sense. >>PAUL McGRADY: Just a quick question about post-decision implementation. This seems to be -- identify myself? I'm Paul McGrady. And I'm going -- and I'm being told to identify myself slowly. [Laughter] >>PAUL McGRADY: Paul McGrady. There we go. A lot of the compliance issues in the UDRP tend to swirl around two things, and we've talked about the first one, which is, you know, who the respondent is. And as complainants who have been doing the UDRP know, who you end up as a respondent, you know, really depends a lot on how -- who the registrar is. You know, we've had situations where the registrar has changed the respondent's identity to the complainant or to an affiliate of the complainant or, you know, all kinds of shenanigans, and there's really no way around that, other than to, you know, identify them as shenanigans and take the position that they're no longer complying with UDRP and ICANN's regional policies and the cover of the ACPA for registrars no longer applies to them. But in terms of the post-implementation, that's where we see a lot of excitement as well, with registrars that won't cooperate. I was wondering if the panel could comment on their thoughts about section -- I'll use the dot com registry agreement as an example, but Section 3.1(b) of the dot com registry agreement, which says that the registry is also bound by consensus policy, and specifically they have an obligation to implement consensus policy, and there's a subparagraph that specifically relates to disputes between whether -- the parties and whether or not -- who has the right to register a particular domain name. And so at what point, if the panel would like to comment on this -- at what point should a complainant's lawyer simply throw up their hands and say, "It's been 10 days, it's been 30 days, the registrar's clearly not going to comply and now it's time to go to the registry and insist that the registry comply with consensus policy"? >>KRISTINE DORRAIN: I think that might be a Stacy question. I just want to mention that it -- it's a plug for Stacy that maybe a year ago, I would have said, "Yeah," throw up my hands, I can't help you -- I'm sorry, I'm Kristine, for the people in the back. And I think maybe I would have said that once upon a time. But since Stacy's been here, they've responded so quickly to the complaints of non-implementation that I don't know that that would be necessary in 2008. That's my opinion. [Speaker is off microphone] >>STACY BURNETTE: Before you throws your hands up, I hope you will contact our office, because as you've seen, we are taking this seriously and we will take action pursuant to the agreement to ensure that registrars do comply with their obligation to implement UDRP decisions. So... I think -- >>PAUL McGRADY: I guess it was not -- if I can -- I don't know if I need the microphone back or not. The question wasn't about ICANN's efforts and compliance. I think that ICANN has made fantastic strides in helping with post-transfer order compliance issues, and Stacy and her team are fantastic and very responsive. I think I had more -- more of a -- the legal question, which is whether or not the panel believes that the registry itself also has a coexisting obligation to implement transfer orders. Dr. Berryhill said that the onus is on the registrar to comply, but the way I'm reading this, it looks like maybe the onus is also on the registry, and we have to ask ourselves whether or not the compliance obligation has merely been pushed down the registrar level because nobody has thought to ask the registry to do it and it's not necessarily -- you know, it probably is both that have an obligation. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: Yeah. I wasn't going to answer any legal questions, but... The UDRP is an ICANN consensus policy to the extent that the consensus is that the UDRP is to be required in all gTLD domain name registration contracts between a registrar and a registrant. The jurisdiction, the force of law, behind the UDRP is that it is a contract provision between the registrar and the registrant. So the -- while it is a consensus policy, it is not a policy that requires the registry to do anything, because it's the -- the policy is that the registrars should incorporate it into their domain name registration contracts. That's where it becomes of legal effect. A lot of problems could be solved at the registry level, but that's a different issue. >>ZYBNEK LOEBEL: Hello. Zybnek Loebel from Czech Arbitration Court. As Leena said, we are now in the middle of UDRP implementation process, and I would have two questions, probably, for Stacy. The first one is that I would like you, if possible, to confirm what Kristine mentioned about the time when -- the point of time when the obligation to lock the domain name kicks in. And this is the same -- as we interpret the rules, this is when the registrars become aware about a dispute. This is usually when the provider sends out the verification request. So that's the first question. And the second is relate -- related to what John said, and it is that we are now developing an online platform for UDRP tool to make it maybe more easy for the parties to file disputes, and it would be extremely helpful for us to have access to the updated registrar information because then it would make -- then we can build even automatic notifications, et cetera, as part of the functions of the online platform. So I support very much what John said, that it would be very helpful if we can have access to this information which ICANN obviously has. Okay? >>STACY BURNETTE: The requirement concerns the commencement of the -- locking has to take place during the pending administrative proceeding, and so the administrative proceeding, the registrar has to receive notice of that administrative proceeding. And upon receiving notice, that's when the locking requirement kicks in. [Speaker is off microphone] >>STACY BURNETTE: And then the second part of your question was you want -- [Speaker is off microphone] >>STACY BURNETTE: We're actually working on that. We see that there are some issues and our office is working on that presently to update that information. There's so many hands up. Who was next? >>PAUL McGRADY: I can play Phil Donahue, too, if it's helpful. Who was next? Right here. Okay. >> Hi. I'm Michael (saying name). I represent a registrar in Brazil, and I have a very simple question. The registrar received a dispute notification, and it's supposed to execute a lock on the domain, but what happens if the domain, it's about to expire? Is the registrar supposed to pay for the renewal? >>JOHN BERRYHILL: You actually -- we had this problem solved. In the expired that domain deletion policy, which is a totally separate policy, there is about a paragraph and a half that addresses this situation, because during the process of developing a uniform domain expiration policy, you know, this issue came up. And there is a procedure that the registrar is obligated to follow in the expired domain deletion policy that addresses what happens when a domain name expires during a UDRP dispute. It's a little strange but I'll give you the URL for it before you leave. >>KRISTINE DORRAIN: Let me mention, though, that -- I think this goes hand in hand with your question. I think the implementation of the EDDP is the hard part because a lot of time registrars don't realize that the domain is being expired during the course of the proceeding so the case may be already with a panel. The domain may delete during that process. Really, to no fault of the registrar that -- that the domain was deleted. They didn't know and nobody else knew. Some registrars at verification are really good at telling us, "This domain name is going to be deleted in a couple of days." They note that. We try to note that when we get a verification. But that's really the tough part about the EDDP. If no one is paying attention and it deletes during the process, that's where -- that's another really ambiguous part of the UDR -- of the whole process. The other part is, again, it goes back to the definition of the word pending. When the dispute is pending, you know, at what point does -- should the registrar or should somebody notify us that it's being deleted. >>LEENA BALLARD: Yeah, I just want -- Leena, from the CENTR. I just want to add to that. That specific clause or provision is really difficult to read. I mean, it's some -- or most -- even most complainants, they read it in a way that if the domain name is deleted or expires during the pending proceeding, that the -- that the domain name belongs to them and that's not the idea of this provision. The idea is to keep the domain name subject to the proceedings at all times, so that the proceeding may go until the end and until the -- when we have the decision. It will be then decided whether there's transfer or not, and at that point when the panel issues the decision, we will know whether the registrar is to transfer the domain name to the complainant or not. And also I wanted to say that this provision, if we are talking about what should be -- what we could make better, that clause, in addition to stating from which moment a pending is considered to be pending -- sorry -- also could, we believe, maybe obligate somebody to follow up on that. Because currently, the provision reads it's not the registrar's obligation, it's not the complainant's obligation, and it's not the provider's obligation to follow up on this policy. Okay? At the end of the day, I believe it's the complainant who should look into these things, but the expiry dates that are on WHOIS databases are not always up-to-date and that's when I was talking about the -- the provider requesting the status of the domain name, that means we inquire you whether the domain name is going to expire and if you are saying, okay, it has been deleted, okay. In two weeks' time, it will expire. We will then ask you whether -- whether you think that you will automatically renew it for the purpose of the proceedings, or whether you require one of the parties to pay renewal fees, and the provision provides you the opportunity to ask the same amount of money as you would ask from the registrant, so this is not an invitation to require fees because we just consider it would be a good -- good effort to -- from registrars to keep the domain name subject to the proceedings without renewal, but, I mean, up to you. >>STACY BURNETTE: I think we've -- we're about to run out of time. This is what I want to share with you. In our contractual compliance newsletter, the next issue we can cover questions concerning the UDRP but I need to get at least five questions in order to write an article about this matter. So if you write me directly, stacy.burnette@icann.org, and I get at least five questions, we'll cover those questions in the newsletter in July. So -- [Speaker is off microphone] >>STACY BURNETTE: I'll cover even more. If I get more than five, of course I'll include the additional ones but I need at least five to create an article about it. So thank you, everyone, for participating. It's really a compliment that we had more questions than we were able to take at this session. That means this is really something that's interesting to you, and you want to find out more about it, and we want to give you more information, so I do want to thank all the panelists for volunteering their time. [Applause] >>STACY BURNETTE: And we will be holding additional educational sessions on the UDRP in the future. So thank you.