Whois-Search

Also anyone who writes a story about this will get a link on the front page of my website for two weeks.

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Andrew Bennett - www.whois-search.com
Linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/andrewgbennett

Johnp

Andrew

I like your banner. I think Nom. however are likely to find out the hard way about the law of unintended consequences if this proposal in its present form goes through. They have forgotten what they were trying to fix, namely a few registrants that make a deliberate point of not responding to a DRS case, presumably because they have made a commercial decision on the matter.

I make a predicition that we will see all these same registrants change their behaviour and send in one line responses to a DRS and be unavailable on the phone for mediation, leaving the complainant no option but to pay the £ 750 plus VAT expert fee. Whilst in the meantime a new business around DRS speculation will be created with many of the problems already highlighted.

What next ? will we then have a further consultation and change to the DRS process, so that at least a 200 word repsonse is required ? If so what's your favourite poem, as I am sure that is what you'll get.

Of the replies to the consultation so far, the lawyers seem to like it, as those registrants that are professionally represented will still need to complete a full submission, just is case it goes to an expert. Perhaps the lawyers see a bit more business, in that clients might think it now costs less to go throught the proceess. Many of the others don't really understand the wider implications to themselves as regular domain registrants of what might happen to their name if they were the target of a speculative DRS case.

Just my thoughts on the matter.


JohnP

Beasty

Am I being a bit thick, or are the figures and statements used in the cosultation misleading:

Consultation - "In our experience, for the great majority of domain name disputes a third party rights holder has a straightforward claim to a domain name and the respondent does not submit any reply to their complaint."

Nominet's own statistics - "The average response rate to valid disputes over the last 12 months was 47%"

http://www.nominet.org.uk/intelligence/statistics/drs/

Even if all of the 53% no response cases had a "straightforward claim" - and we know they did not because some of them fail when presented to an Expert - can a 53:47 split be fairly described as a "great majority" of cases?

If anything, this differential seems to be dropping towards parity and beyond. Nominet's graphs show that in the past 2 months where figures were available (May and June 2007) the Response rate was over 80%.

http://www.nominet.org.uk/intelligen...contentId=2915

Consultation - "In over 95% of no response cases currently, the complainant wins."

Nominet's own figures - This statistic is misleading. Even if it is true of cases that are referred to an Expert (we can not say for sure as the raw data is not available), it is certainly not accurate as an unqualified statement about all no-response cases.

That is because it ignores the cases that are dropped, even where there is no response.

Overall, according to Nominet's website, 32% of all cases are dropped.

http://www.nominet.org.uk/intelligen...contentId=2915

According to graphs used by Nominet's in-house solicitor at a recent presentation, more than half of the "no response" cases dealt with in March 2007 (the most recent month with complete figures) resulted in the complainant dropping the case.

In October 2006 (the busiest month for no-response cases in the charts shown) the figure was 16 out of 35 cases resulted in a transfer - only in about 45% of no response cases does the complainant win.

http://www.domaindisputes.co.za/down...70904Stats.pdf

If someone (Nominet) has the raw data on all "no response" cases for a longer period, perhaps they could share them with us.

They might also want to either point out where I am going wrong with this analysis - or to re-start the consultation using accurate and objective figures in the covering paper.

retired_member12

And if the information you highlight is indeed wrong or misleading when presented to the members, it raises serious questions regarding the accuracy of anything which Nominet presents in any other scenario, from DRS case files to AGMs to press releases.

sneezycheese

Only ONE day to go guys - last chance to have your say!!!

http://www.nic.uk/policy/consultatio...ansfer/survey/

Cheers,

Sneezy.

Beasty

Nominet have admitted that the original reason given for this proposal is wrong. However, instead of accepting the logical consequence of their mistake, they have engaged in meaningless spin doctoring.

In the original consultation they claimed that :

But we now know - and they accept - that "this situation" does not exist. The truth is that less than 20% of DRS cases started in the last two months where figures are available resulted in no response being filed. Under 20% - not a "great majority".

Over the previous 12 months the figure is said to be 53% - and that is dropping fast judging from recent monthly stats. Again, no "great majority".

Simply put, the figures tell us that the reason the whole proposal was presented on does not exist.

However, rather than admit this fact in plain English, Nominet chose to admit the error only on the nom-steer closed mailing list - and then engaged in the type of spin doctoring that Alistair Campbell would have been proud of.

Without mentioning the change, the consultation page now says this:

Clearly they had no intention of letting the facts get in the way of a good story! If you actually read what the site now says, it merely states a hypothetical case that is both blindingly obvious and meaningless at the same time.

Again, they stick to the 95% statistic for victories for the complainant in no response cases that go to an expert - whereas the original justification on the basis of all such no response cases drops to 45%. No mention of that on the site.

As it happens, even if the "great majority" of cases were no response ones, there are a number of strong arguments that should ensure that it was not introduced. For a start, there is no need to re-invent the wheel - the County Court system (including the IP specialist Patents County Court) offers the opportunity to issue and serve proceedings for a court fee of £150. If there is no response, default judgment can be applied for.

Cheaper than the DRS proposal and it would allow complainants to bring actions for any number of domains against any of the regular faces on the DRS that give rise to the perceived need for this. There is no need to re-write the DRS in a way that will impact any number of legitimate registrants.

I urge you to complete the DRS consultation and to reject this transparently flawed proposal. It's only a tick box question - it will only take a minute - and it has to be done by tomorrow 3 October.

Jeewhizz

Beasty - have you contacted elreg about this? I'm sure they'd be happy to run this editorial...

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