The adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the EU member countries and the resulting fact that the WHOIS protocol is becoming a thing of the past has had quite an unexpected outcome: large companies are filing UDRP complaints more often now with a single goal: to use it as a backdoor way of accessing domain name ownership information.
There is certain logic to this. For example, according to the rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), if a complaint arises, the complainant is given five days to amend the complaint and does not provide a copy of the complaint to the respondent at that point. This measure seems quite sensible: it is easy to assume that the domain that displeases a particular company is not only similar to one of its brands, but, for example, is the name of the registrant. In this case, it is better to withdraw your complaint as soon as possible, since there are practically no chances of winning.
Earlier, the necessary information could be obtained directly from the WHOIS records, but now there is no such possibility. Domain Name Wire cites attorney John Berryhill, a leading expert in domain disputes. A company filed a complaint against his client’s domain, but after getting the WHOIS information they withdrew the complaint and wrote, “We are extremely happy to finally have someone we can talk to on this matter.”
According to WIPO statistics, at least 20 percent of UDRP complaints are settled prior to panel appointment. In such cases, the complainant only has to pay the WIPO $500, and Czech Arbitration Court which also deals with UDRP complaints charges even less: only $400. Clearly these sums are not serious expenses for large businesses. However, it would be more expensive to use Tucows’ paid access service, for example. Another way to obtain information about a registrant is by filing a lawsuit, but this is a very long and also expensive process for companies.
