Registrars of generic top level domains must be accredited by ICANN, and the registrar submits to an agreement imposing various obligations.

In May I wrote to ICANN requesting that it review whether a specific registrar was in compliance with its accreditation.  I indicated that I had reason to believe that the registrar was systematically refusing to comply with orders from UDRP panels to transfer domain names.  Furthermore, I had reason to believe that this registrar was maintaining several thousand domain names that it knew were registered with willfully false whois data.  ICANN is currently reviewing my request.

The Intellectual Property Consitutency of ICANN is now requesting feedback regarding registrar compliance (see below).  You do not need to be a member of the IPC to respond.  Please note that the request focuses on instances of systematic non-compliance with the accreditation agreement.  Specific complaints regarding transfer and renewal can be lodged here.

Dear All

A number of instances of registrars failing to comply with their obligations under the registrar accreditation agreement have been brought to our attention and I thought it was appropriate to raise this with the constituency as a whole in order to gauge how widespread these practices are.  The areas of non-compliance with which we are particularly concerned fall into two categories:

1.  Non-compliance with a UDRP decision or decision of an appropriate national court to transfer a domain name.

2. Failure to cancel a domain name following notification of false WHOIS data.

It is important to intellectual property owners that registrars comply with the provisions of the registrar accreditation agreement which relate to WHOIS accuracy and the UDRP.  Please can you circulate this request amongst the relevant individuals of your organisation and let me know if you have experienced either of these problems.

If there is a serious problem with compliance with particular registrars, this is something which should be brought to ICANN’s attention.  To assist the IPC in doing that, please can you provide as much detail as possible in any response (obtaining client consent where appropriate) and provide contact details in case further details are required.

Many thanks

Jane Mutimear  jane.mutimear@twobirds.com
President IPC