FC: ICANN domain name dispute process appears biased, by M.Geist

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

********

Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 08:20:17 -0400
To: declan () well com
From: Michael Geist <mgeist () uottawa ca>
Subject: ICANN UDRP Study Raises Panelist Allocation Bias Concerns

Declan,

I have just completed a study on the ICANN UDRP that may be of interest to 
you and your readers.  Study is at
http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~geist/geistudrp.pdf

It reviewed all 3094 ICANN UDRP decisions (through July 7, 2001) and found 
that when providers control who decides a case (which they do for all 
single panel cases), complainants win just over 83 percent of the 
time.  When provider influence over panelists diminishes, which occurs in 
three-member panel cases, the complainant winning percentage drops to 60 
percent.  In addition to the dramatic difference in outcome between single 
and three-member panels, the study finds that case allocation appears to be 
heavily biased toward ensuring that a majority of cases are steered toward 
complainant-friendly panelists. As of July 7, 2001, an astonishing 53% of 
all NAF single panel cases (512 of 966) were decided by only six 
people.  The complainant winning percentage in those cases was an 
astounding 94%.  WIPO, meanwhile, has failed to assign even one of its 1629 
single panel cases to at least two panelists perceived to be 
pro-respondent.  Of the 104 WIPO panelists to have decided five or more 
cases, all but one have complainants winning at least 50% of the time.

In conjunction with the release of the study, I have ported much of the 
collected data to the Web.  Udrpinfo.com features a searchable database of 
the track record of individual panel members with more features to 
come.  Beta version of the site is at http://www.udrpinfo.com.

Media coverage this morning includes

Do Cyberspace Court Panels Favor Trademark Holders? (sub required)
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB998251965684550590.htm

Web Arbitration Biased: Study
<http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/FullStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&date=20010820&dateOffset=&hub=headdex&title=Headlines&cache_key=headdexBusiness&current_row=15&start_row=15&num_rows=1>

Regards,

MG
--
**********************************************************************
Professor Michael A. Geist
University of Ottawa Law School, Common Law Section
57 Louis Pasteur St., P.O. Box 450, Stn. A, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5
Tel: 613-562-5800, x3319     Fax: 613-562-5124
e-mail: mgeist () uottawa ca
URL:    http://www.lawbytes.com




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------