The final report of the UDRP Review led by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center and the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) has been published and is available on WIPO’s website here.

The report was a comprehensive effort by UDRP users and is intended to support ICANN’s formal GNSO policy procedures.

The goal was to protect the UDRP. The recommendations and insights in the final report provide ICANN’s GNSO Council with a clear path forward.

A number of recommendations were identified as very likely to achieve consensus and which are readily implementable.

It is suggested that these updates can be agreed upon – and implemented – before every item identified in a Charter needs to be tackled and consensus reached. This has the added benefit of not overloading the UDRP – which has been working very well for 25 years – with too many changes all at once, giving practitioners, parties, panellists and providers all a chance to adjust to any changes made.

The review also identified topics of broad agreement in principle, but where additional work is required on implementation particulars. These recommendations can follow the readily implemented ones if consensus is reached.

Certain topics were identified where there is recognition that a solution or agreed direction has not yet been determined and that further study and consensus building may be warranted. Finally, a few topics were identified where we recommend that the status quo remain.

Brian Beckham of the WIPO Center told MARQUES: “We are confident this Report will prove useful for ICANN’s chartering Phase II of the RPM review, and indeed on the substantive work that follows. And we are encouraged by our longstanding relationship to count on MARQUES’ and members advocacy across ICANN for maximum impact on this Report for the future health of the UDRP.”

The MARQUES Cyberspace Team concerns itself, inter alia, with domain names, gTLDs, the UDRP procedure and its revision. The Team provided the following comments on the final report:

We are of the opinion that the UDRP is a great and efficient procedure which has worked well for 25 years and in over 120,000 UDRP cases, helping to tackle cross-border infringement in the domain name system. It is an effective answer to situations that cannot be diligently dealt with by courts.

The Team welcomes the final report and takes the view that is an excellent piece of work by the WIPO-ICA UDRP Team and respective stakeholders. However, we see the risk that it may not be accepted by the wider ICANN community. Further, we were hoping that the issue of the financial burden would be addressed by a “loser pays systems” or at least that the loser contributes more towards the costs. Currently, it is the brand owners who generally have to pay the fees and have no possibility of reimbursement. Also, the Team sees the need to implement procedures in relation to ICANN registrars which are not compliant with ICANN regulations.

Further, in view of our day-to-day practice and the infringements that companies are currently facing, we see the need to further address pressing DNS issues such as the impact of AI in relation to AI-assisted domain abuses, including fake websites, coned storefronts and phishing pages or other “impersonation” of brands.