URS Individual Proposal #15 The URS should be amended to include express provisions (beyond the mention of a “pattern of conduct” in URS Procedure paragraph 1.2.6.3(b)) which provide additional penalties for “repeat offenders” and “high-volume cybersquatting.” The definition of a “repeat offender” should be any domain name registrant who loses two or more separate URS proceedings. The definition of “high-volume cybersquatting” should be any URS proceeding where the Complainant prevails against a single Respondent in a Complaint involving 10 or more domain names. Once either of these standards are established, the penalties should include (i) a requirement that the registrant deposit funds into an escrow account, or provide an equivalent authorization on a credit card, with each new domain registration (such funds could be dispersed to prevailing Complainants in future domain name disputes against that registrant as part of a “loser pays” system), and (ii) a universal blocking of all domain registrations for a set period for the registrant (i.e. “blacklisting” the registrant on a temporary basis). There may be other possible enhanced penalties that would also be appropriate. Such requirements could be included in updated URS Rules, made enforceable against Registrars via parallel updates to the RAA and domain name registration agreements of individual Registrars. These obligations would be enforceable by ICANN Compliance. |
Context:
Rationale provided by the Proponent: Habitual cybersquatting is a significant problem and registrants who have lost multiple cases or have been found to target numerous domain names are clearly not changing their activities based on such losses. Enhanced penalties are needed to serve as a further deterrent against serial cybersquatting and patterns of bad faith and abusive domain name registration and use.
Repeat infringers meet little if any sanction. This should be defined as any registrant that has lost URS cases pertaining to, for example, two or more registrations. While of course this could be for many reasons and the registrant may be acting in good faith, sanctions such as a blocked guarantee being required for further registrations (which could be released after a new level of “clean" registrations is reached) will not be of concern to such a party. Other technical sanctions can be discussed for viability with the Contracted Parties House (CPH), which of course is also keen to promote a clean DNS.
Working Group Deliberation: There was general support in the Working Group for publishing this Individual Proposal in the Initial Report to seek public comment[1], with some Working Group members supporting the Individual Proposal as drafted. However, some Working Group members expressed opposition, in terms of both substance and implementation of the Individual Proposal, including the proposed remedies and the definition of “repeat offender” and of “high volume cybersquatting”.
Working Group Question for Public Comment: The Working Group seeks public comment on whether the proposed definitions of “repeat offender” and “high-volume cybersquatting” are appropriate, and the feasibility of implementing the proposal.
[1] The Working Group confirmed that URS Individual Proposal #15 incorporated and superseded URS Individual Proposal #14, of which its rationale applied to URS Individual Proposal #15. The Working Group decided not to publish URS Individual Proposal #14 in this Initial Report for public comment, but the link to all submitted URS Individual Proposals can be found in the “Annex C - Working Group Documents” section.
