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 :
the great majority of domain name disputes ... the respondent does not submit any reply to their complaint.
It is with this situation in mind that the default transfer process is now being proposed.
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:
In our experience, for the great majority of domain name disputes where a third party rights holder has a straightforward claim to a domain name and the respondent does not submit any response to their complaint, the complainant succeeds at expert decision.
Also, in our experience, the majority of domain name disputes that go to an expert decision are cases where the complainant is a third party rights holder who has a straightforward claim to a domain name and the respondent has not submitted a response to the complaint.
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.