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“UDRP-proof” .feedback gTLD loses first UDRP

Kevin Murphy, September 26, 2016, Domain Registries

The first cybersquatting complaint against a .feedback domain name has resulted in a transfer, despite registry claims that the gTLD was “UDRP-proof”.
De Beers, the diamond merchant, won a UDRP case against the registrant of debeers.feedback earlier this month.
The registrant, who used a privacy service, registered the name back in January, when .feedback was in its unusual “Free Speech Partner Program” phase.
That took the place of an Early Access Program, but saw domains deeply discounted instead of premium-priced.
Buyers had to agree to point their domain to a registry-hosted social media platform and there was a $5,000 fee if they later decided to change name servers.
The registrant of debeers.feedback lost the UDRP largely because there wasn’t much actual feedback on the site until De Beers sent him a nastygram.
On March 24, the site only contained a single two-word post. Five more were added with apparently false earlier dates at a later time, the panelist found.
He wrote:

If the website were genuinely operating as a feedback forum, one would ordinarily expect the reviews to have appeared at or close to their respective dates. That they were not on the website on March 24 and did not appear until after the letter of demand was sent calls for explanation.

The panelist doesn’t mention it, but the reviews all seem to have been copied directly from Yelp!.
Basically, the registrant lost his domain for filling the site with bogosity rather than genuine free-speech griping.
It’s not a terribly surprising or worrying result, perhaps, but it does run counter to what Jay Westerdal, CEO of registry Top Level Spectrum, told us back in January.
“It is a great opportunity for domainers to register domains that will be UDRP proof,” he said at the time. “As free speech sites they are going to improve the world and let anyone read reviews on any subject.”
“I think they are UDRP proof,” he added back then, offering the services of his lawyers to registrants who found themselves served with UDRP complaints.
Today, Westerdal qualified his earlier remarks, telling DI: “I don’t think having a privacy service and also having a .feedback domain will hold up in the current UDRP system.”
Privacy services are discouraged by the registry, though explicitly permitted in its terms of service.
Westerdal said that because De Beers obtained the domain via UDRP, the company will not have to pay the $5,000 unlocking fee if it wants to point debeers.feedback’s name servers elsewhere.