ICANN files UDRP against UDRPFail.com

May 8, 2009

Article by moi:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has filed a Uniform Domain-name dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) action against Ben Dean, the owner of UDRPFail.com. ICANN claims Mr. Dean has no legitimate right to use the claim “UDRP Fail” as all the failing to date is directly a consequence of the failure of the UDRP, not Mr. Dean.

UDRP Fail

In a recent UDRP decision a single panelist stripped Mr. Dean of his domain name Deacom.com and awarded it to the complainant because; “The Panel agrees with Complainant’s assertion that Respondent has not utilized the disputed domain name in an active manner.” In this case active manner means not having an active website. The UDRP panelist failed to take into consideration Mr. Dean used the domain for business email correspondence. Furthermore, the complainant in conjunction with the UDRP failed to prove Mr. Dean registered the domain name in bad faith or that he was not using the domain for bona fide business use

In response to losing his domain name, Mr. Dean set up a “bona fide” website to communicate his displeasure with the UDRP decision, which failed to protect the rights of the domain name owner, in this case Mr. Dean. This website can be found at http://www.udrpfail.com

In a not-so surprising turn of events, ICANN, the agency which oversees the UDRP has filed a UDRP action against Mr. Dean for using the terms “UDRP” and “Fail” in the same domain name. ICANN is not claiming they own the mark, but asserting they have established the UDRP as a “failing” policy and as such have exclusive rights to “fail.” Considering there is no doubt ICANN has legitimate use rights in the acronym UDRP and clearly has shown they have “failed” on more than one occasion, see; Versa.com and Filta.com for recent failures, there is a better than good chance ICANN will win this decision.

Don’t be surprised if ICANN goes after Fail.com next. Although “Fail” is a generic term, one could argue the failure rate of the UDRP is so out of whack the policy is now synonymous with failing and therefore requires the domain name Fail.com because one can assume direct or indirect visitors expect to find the UDRP and/or ICANN-related content at the domain name Fail.com. The owner of Fail.com, Exponent Engineering and Consulting could not be reached for comment.