Forum Gets The Headline Right — National Arbitration

UDRP filings up. That doesn’t mean cybersquatting is increasing.

Today National Arbitration Forum released statistics regarding its UDRP caseload from 2010. It was up 24% from 2009 to 2,177 cases.

The group’s press release headline is:

National Arbitration Forum Notes a 24 Percent Increase in Domain Name Dispute Filings in 2010

This is an accurate and factual statement.

Compare this to World Intellectual Property Forum’s headline when it released numbers last month:

Cybersquatting Hits Record Level

WIPO’s headline may or may not be true. But the group can’t come to this conclusion based on what it was really saying — UDRP filings at WIPO hit a record in 2010.

The truth is we don’t know if cybersquatting is up or if enforcement via UDRP is up.

Given that a UDRP case was filed in 2010 only once for every 40,000 domains registered, we’re talking regarding a very modest sample.