!!!WARNING!!! Nominet Can ‘Doctor’ DRS Results!

[sneezycheese]

Please note: this information is also contained in another thread.

Having made a formal complaint to Nominet about the contradictions made in a DRS decision against me, they have now ‘amended’ the result, REMOVING (amongst others) the following very important quote by the expert:

“There is no evidence to show that the Respondent registered this Domain Name with prior knowledge of the Complainant’s business”

Saying that this is a “typographical error” and that “The removal of the offending phrase is for the purposes of clarity only and does not change the basis upon which the decision was made”.

This would seem to be one VERY BIG typo seeing that the decision against me was based on paragraph 3(a)(i)(C) of the ‘Policy’!

POLL: I wonder, can we trust the Nominet DRS anymore?

 

[Nigel]

Please note: this information is also contained in another thread.

Having made a formal complaint to Nominet about the contradictions made in a DRS decision against me, they have now ‘amended’ the result, REMOVING (amongst others) the following very important quote by the expert:

“There is no evidence to show that the Respondent registered this Domain Name with prior knowledge of the Complainant’s business”

Saying that this is a “typographical error” and that “The removal of the offending phrase is for the purposes of clarity only and does not change the basis upon which the decision was made”.

This would seem to be one VERY BIG typo seeing that the decision against me was based on paragraph 3(a)(i)(C) of the ‘Policy’!

POLL: I wonder, can we trust Nominet anymore?

I agree that this seems one HUGE typo and is a great cause for concern. Are you able to clarify an important point. Was it Nominet who changed the report or was the expert invited by Nominet to change his report?

 

[domaingenius]

Does anyone have the original decision with the parts that have been removed ??. If so maybe they could post it so that it can be referred to. This shows that Nominet are not independent from the DRS at all and it may well be that they seek to remove that to make it easier for complainants in future proceedings. You would never see removal of parts of a judgment in a court case without the Judge going through and agreeing it.Hearings are taped and then transcribed by third party translators from the tape. Does not inspire any confidence at all in the DRS procedure.

DG

 

[sneezycheese]

Was it Nominet who changed the report or was the expert invited by Nominet to change his report?

Unfortunately I do not ‘truly’ know the answer to this question. However, Nominet’s Company Solicitor did tell me the following:

“In paragraph (f) of your letter you raise two specific objections to the Expert’s decision. We raised these with the Expert, and he has corrected one typographical error, and rephrased the second area to make it clearer what he meant. This does not alter the substance of the decision.”

The ‘typo’ that was removed was the sentence that I quoted before in my earlier post.

 

[italiandragon]

may I ask what name had your site? cheers

 

[EdPhillips]

Was it Nominet who changed the report or was the expert invited by Nominet to change his report?

Let me clarify this. The registrant involved contacted us with a concern about the clarity of the decision. Nominet passed those concerns back to the Expert, who amended his decision in order to make it clear what he meant. It did not change the outcome of the decision. The domain name was sundeckvip.co.uk DRS 03195 (available at http://www.nic.uk/disputes/drs/decisions/). Nominet does not edit expert's decisions.

 

[olebean]

Its not very often i agree with the almighty, if it was as EdPhilips suggests and as both Ed and Mr Cheese agree, the desision woudn't have changed.

What is curious, I am hopefuly Ed will oblige in agreeing that the correspondance with Mr cheese could have been worded more appropriately, especially considering the grievance already expressed.

 

[domainer]

How come a domain like this goes to the DRS process anyway - its hardly generic. Or am I missing something.

 

[rob]

How come a domain like this goes to the DRS process anyway - its hardly generic. Or am I missing something.

There was a dispute, sneezycheese said it was generic and Aston Media Ltd who trade as Sundeckvip claim they had rights.

Thus it goes into the DRS process to solve

 

[sneezycheese]

This is my point – Surely a decision should be based on the findings, not that the findings should be ‘massaged’ so to justify a decision!

‘Expert’ finds that… “There is no evidence to show that the Respondent registered this Domain Name with prior knowledge of the Complainant’s business”

What has been done here is that instead of correcting the conclusion, this key finding has been DELETED so to make the conclusion plausible. There’s no getting away from it, this is what has happened!

The bottom line is the decision was edited upon Nominet's instruction (sorry ‘invitation’).

Why ED couldn’t have just admitted the mistake and said sorry, I do not know.

Remember the decision was made on the basis of Paragraph 3(a){i} C. of the Policy, which says:

Evidence of Abusive Registration;

{i} Circumstances indicating that the Respondent has registered or otherwise acquired the Domain Name primarily;

C. for the purpose of unfairly disrupting the business of the Complainant.

 

[rob]

Tricky thing is that when you regged the .co.uk you signed up and agreed to Nominets terms and thus DRS decision stands and they (probably) can do what they like...

 

[domaingenius]

If, as it states, you did not know of the name prior to regging the name how did you arrive at the name ?. It aint like that kind of name pops into your head. Im not knocking you at all coz I know how things go, but if you were to be asked that question on the stand how on earth could you say that you just made it up ?. If it had been a generic name then sure but that aint a generic name at all, infact its far from it. Thats the type of question I would ask if I was the complainant. As they say "live by the sword die by the sword" and its just something you have to accept as part of the "career" of domaining. Ive lost a few names myself but put it down to part of the business.

DG

 

[domainer]

There was a dispute, sneezycheese said it was generic and Aston Media Ltd who trade as Sundeckvip claim they had rights.

Thus it goes into the DRS process to solve

I bow to superior knowledge but I've a few domains that sail close to the wind and if certain people come calling I guess I would simply transfer them. I reckon there may be a few more people in the same boat.

Just how can someone reg sundeckvip.co.uk and hope to get away with it.

 

[sneezycheese]

I bow to superior knowledge but I've a few domains that sail close to the wind and if certain people come calling I guess I would simply transfer them. I reckon there may be a few more people in the same boat.

Just how can someone reg sundeckvip.co.uk and hope to get away with it.

The irony of all this is that the complainant does not legally trade as sundeckvip. I’m not going to say why here, but if this matter comes to court I will mention it there.

Also remember that the complainants directors received (and accepted) a Police Caution for the unscrupulous and unlawful methods that they used to try and obtain the domain from me (including the .net).

By the way there’s no “trying to get away with it” as quoted, a legitimate project that now can only rely on the .net version of the name. This is a bit of a problem as my target audience was primarily (without going into detail) UK expatriates.

You should also have a look at Trademark law.

 

[sneezycheese]

Tricky thing is that when you regged the .co.uk you signed up and agreed to Nominets terms and thus DRS decision stands and they (probably) can do what they like...

Let me tell you a little story:

Once upon a time there was someone called ‘Mr. MOD’. Now ‘Mr. MOD’ was very, very big and strong, with very many resources (including tanks with big guns you know) and he thought he knew it all. One fine day ‘Mr. MOD’ entered into a contract with ‘Mr X’ which ‘Mr. X’ thought was lawful (remember Mr. MOD must know what he’s doing), now what ‘Mr. MOD’ didn’t realise was that this contract was now covered by ‘Statutory Law’ (and several counts of statute by the way). Anyway, ‘Mr. MOD’ wanted to act under the contract and ‘Mr. X’ wasn’t happy, so he did some research. A lot of effort was put into this task, as it didn’t seem fair what ‘Mr. MOD’ wanted to do. Eventually ‘Mr. X’ found the answers in all sorts of laws that had been past over the years and he was happy. The result: the original contract was deemed unlawful and ‘Mr. MOD’ had to bow to the Statutory Law that protected ‘Mr. X’.

The moral of the story: Don’t always believe what you’re told in a contract

 

[rob]

Thanks for the story

As stated earlier by someone , the domain in question is 'aint like that kind of name pops into your head' by registering names like that are just going to cause problems...

(edited to remove TM name examples)

Again as someone else said 'its just something you have to accept as part of the "career" of domaining' . From what you say I am guessing they have not acted wonderfully but see that as a seperate issue to the domain ownership, I do not see someone being aggressive as diminishing or enhancing anyones rights to a name, just that they are plonkers

However are names that could be / are trademark problems worth the hassle ?

Perhaps a wider question - when people register them do they expect settlements, traffic or just enjoy a good legal barney?

Just a general thought, it could be best to take a step back, accept it and move on... only winners here will be lawyers

 

[SF]

Just a general thought, it could be best to take a step back, accept it and move on... only winners here will be lawyers

Very true, I would take it as a loss!

 

[sneezycheese]

As stated earlier by someone , the domain in question is 'aint like that kind of name pops into your head' by registering names like that are just going to cause problems...

Again as someone else said 'its just something you have to accept as part of the "career" of domaining' .

Just a general thought, it could be best to take a step back, accept it and move on... only winners here will be lawyers

As you’ve probably guessed the domain names that I own don’t quite follow the ‘norm’ (take sneezycheese as an example, as I own both the .com and the .co.uk for this name). The main business model that I have followed is in the luxury/vip sector, which to be frank is not a mass market area. I think it’s fair to say that before I set-up luxuryhifi.com there were no references to be found on Google to ‘Luxury Hifi’, now we have a site that gets nearly 20,000 unique visits every month and yet there are only 46 global references in Google to this term.

My main objective is looking for those domains that can be explicitly linked and developed in connection with new business opportunities. The problem I have is that some of the projects I am involved with are covered by NDA’s and as such I am not at liberty to disclose this information to ANYONE else. Which means if I get involved as a Respondent in a Nominet DRS case directly linked to the development of a domain covered by a NDA, there’s no way I can defend myself without being in breach of contract.

There’s no way I’ll be stepping back from this issue, it’s not in my nature to allow myself to be bullied. Hopefully my actions will benefit ALL .uk domain owners, as the need for stability in the domain market has never been stronger. Lawyers will not be the only winners here, at least not on my side

 

[rob]

As you’ve probably guessed the domain names that I own don’t quite follow the ‘norm’

To an extent yes, the bit deleted above was 5th Dec 2005...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4499330.stm gets announced and you register ntlvirgin.co.uk etc - could be linked or co-incidence

Most if not all domainers have regged trademark or domains that are 'iffy' , and those that do are aware of the risks - and possible benefits and a judgement is made

Now going by the info in the DRS published it seems that 'sundeck' is a publication (posh luxury thing, so the likes of me will never have heard of it) and sundeckvip.co.uk was regged Jan 05. It seems sundeckluxury.co.uk was regged Dec 10th, two days after a DRS was lodged at nominet, at a point where I guess you knew about the complainant?

My point is that on sundeckVIP.co.uk it can be said that no prior knowledge of the complainant but on the sundeckLuxury.co.uk did you know and if so what was the aim of the registration?

I am all for fighting what is right but there is a difference between a single one off disputed name and holding two similar ones plus other TM's. Again I must stress neither are in my view a bad thing, but by regging names domainers make a choice and as mentioned by another party "live by the sword die by the sword"

Incidently the complainant (so far) has not declared rights over sundeck.co.uk and other varients.

All very interesting and will be good to see how it develops!

 

[olebean]

Having read the DRS i am intriged about the issue of TM and what appears to be presumtive right over all catagories of TM.

Surely fighting a DRS on the grounds on infringement of right can only be about infringement of rights within a classification. Extending those rights outside the bounds of that right infringes on other classifications namely "class 42". In the case of Sundeckvip there are enough classifications left and i am sorry to rub salt etc but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to illustrate that you could in the meta field add "sundeckvip ™ " or and "sundeckvip.co.uk ™" or an image with ™ adding your own rights.