It has been a busy time in Nominet Towers with both domaining papers and DRS review papers being issued.
In this first post we will look at what the DRS Review has come up with - the full paper can be found here
We feel the key points are:
- Most of the DRS will stay unchanged.
- £10 +vat will be charged to open a DRS complaint.
- For ‘none responses’ a ‘default transfer’ can be applied for costing £200 + vat.
- The DRS gravy train is still on its tracks.
The default transfer system could mean for £210 +vat an unscruplous complainant could at best take down a competitors website for thirty days, or at worst take their domain name from them.
There is currently no clarity on the processes involved and questions have been raised eg. Would the ’set aside’ be like the current DRS appeal or would it reactive the domain and bring the whole process back to square one? If the former I would ask how can Nominet justify the £3k fees on normal appeals, and if the latter what is to stop a cycle of DRS > none reply > set aside > repeat !
As I have posted on the Nom-Steer list I feel an opportunity has been lost to add in:
- A cut off point of X months where a previous registrant of a domain can make a complaint.
- A limit of how many times a single complainant can DRS a domain.
- Specify boundaries for experts to maintain consistency i.e. one expert using Google for FineCheeses.co.uk decision whereas another may have used Ask/MSN and may have altered the outcome 
- Removal of the ‘three strikes’ rule, a registrant may lose three DRS complaints for whatever reasons yet the fourth may be legit and ought to be heard and tested on its own merits.
There was a large consensus that poachers (legal types offering DRS services) ought not be gamekeepers (DRS Experts) due to a potential conflict of interest. Nominet have stated that this situation would not change however steps would be taken to increase transparency.
With any complaint there will always be a party that loses and therefore will feel hard done by, however the problems occur when wider stakeholders are also affected by a decision or policy change.
It is great that the DRS is evolving but it does need to be done without creating future problems.