“ICANN staff has published a draft report on dispute resolution procedures for IGO (inter-governmental organization) domain names” writes George Kirikos. “This proposal has deep flaws and should be rejected by the community, as it does not have the balance and protection of registrant rights present in the existing UDRP.”

George believes “that in the proposed policy, the domain registrant (respondent) has much weaker protection compared to the UDRP because the complainant need only prove a single element is present.”

George concludes, “this draft policy is very poorly written (unless you’re a covetous IGO), and threatens to permit mass reverse hijacking of short domain names, with limited recourse.” He proposes “at a minimum that the draft policy be amended to compel the complainant to prove bad faith registration AND use of the domain name, like the UDRP, and to permit the respondent to create an affirmative defense that they do have their own legitimate rights or interest in the domain name. This would add balance to the policy, and limit the ability of reverse domain name hijacking to occur. With the use of appropriate Sunrise procedures for new TLDs, the need for any specific policy for IGOs is lessened.”

To read George’s full article in Circle ID, see www.circleid.com/posts/710118_short_domain_names_igo_udrp/