14 November, 2010

Registry Cybersquatting Loopholes

In a comment entitled "Will ICANN disqualify GoDaddy from being a new TLD applicant due to multiple UDRP losses of Standard Tactics LLC?", George Kirikos writes:

"Why is ICANN protecting entities who have engaged indirectly in cybersquatting, by allowing them to apply for new TLDs, as long as their cybersquatting happened under shell companies that they can disassociate themselves from?"

George asserts that "GoDaddy was involved with domain name warehousing under a company called "Standard Tactics LLC", as was documented in a series of articles by DomainNameWire.com, see here and here.  Standard Tactics has lost numerous UDRP decisions, though. See, for example: here, herehere, here, here and here." 

George asks,  "So, the question is simple: Are the current rules, as currently drafted, "bulletproof", to prevent registrars who've lost UDRP decisions on multiple occasions from applying for new TLDs? Or, are there loopholes that will allow them to skirt the intent of the "rules", so that they can still apply for TLDs indirectly, e.g. via shell companies, offshore holding companies, etc.?" 

He concludes his observations by stating, "I believe ICANN has intentionally left in this gaping loophole, because it wants to ensure that those who've gamed the system in the past will still be able to apply for new TLDs (so that ICANN can rake in the huge fees).  How can ICANN pretend that they are serious about stopping cybersquatting when they would leave open such a huge loophole that registrars can hop through?"

No comments:

Post a Comment