Is a good UDRP panelist… — Now this
Panelist spends a few extra minutes to avoid an injustice.
A UDRP panelist who doesn’t take the easy way out in a case where the respondent doesn’t reply?
Meet Nick J. Gardner.
Gardner decided a recent case in which German firm MAGIX Software GmbH filed a UDRP against the U.S. owner of MusicMaker.com.
The domain name was registered in 1996. Given that it was so long ago, the whois lists the owner as The Music Connection, and Music Maker is a descriptive term, Gardner decided to do some basic research following the responded didn’t put up a fight.
A simple web search found that the tech contact in whois ran a CD business at MusicMaker.com. Gardner then did a Wayback Machine search and found that, indeed, there was a site at MusicMaker.com in the late 90s.
Gardner also had the basic knowledge (lacking in some panelists) to decipher between a registrar-created domain parking page and one created by the domain name owner to make a profit off PPC.
Given the circumstances, Gardner denied MAGIX Software GmbH’s cybersquatting complaint.
A lot of panelists would have just taken the easy way out and accepted all of the complainant’s assertions. Kudos to Gardner for taking a few extra minutes to make sure an injustice didn’t happen.
