Are Domain Disputes Suffering From Arbitrators Arbitrarily Cutting & Pasting Decisions?

from the that-doesn't-sound-good dept

JJ sends over this post concerning some troubling evidence that folks from the National Arbitration Forum, who are involved in domain name disputes, have been doing an awful lot of cutting and pasting from earlier decisions in creating their new decisions, leading to nonsense text being included in the decisions, and raising some questions about the outcomes of certain rulings. For example, the article discusses how the company Woot won a domain dispute for the domain name wooot.com, and the domain was supposed to have been transferred to Woot. Instead, the domain was canceled, and some of the text of the decision talked about AOL and a totally unrelated domain name iaol.com.

In an era of cut & paste simplicity, perhaps this isn't too surprising, but when you go to the trouble of going through an arbitration hearing, you would at least like to think that the decision has been considered carefully -- not sloppily cut and pasted from earlier decisions with apparently little or no review.

Filed Under: arbitration, cut and paste, domains

Another Court Finds 'Browserwrap' Terms Are Enforceable

from the so-which-is-it? dept

Just a few months ago we wrote about two separate lawsuits involving "browserwrap" or "clickwrap" agreements and whether or not they were enforceable. In the first one, an agreement was found to be enforceable even if the user on the website wasn't forced to view it, but it was just a link away. That seems to be the same view held by the court in a new ruling, that says that even if the agreement is on another page and the user never reads it, the fact that there's a link to it makes it enforceable. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how that makes much sense, but it seems to be the way the courts are leaning. Of course, it's not all courts, though. Because the other case we wrote about a few months ago found exactly the opposite, saying that such a "browserwrap" agreement is not enforceable because the user was not adequately notified.

Filed Under: agreements, arbitration, browserwrap, eulas

Overstock Told That 'Browserwrap' Agreement Is Unenforceable

from the or-is-it? dept

It's still not entirely clear what online agreements are actually enforceable and which aren't. We've seen cases go both ways, with a recent ruling even noting that terms that are a hyperlink away, rather than on the agreement page itself, may be enforceable. But the latest case, involving online retailer Overstock went in the other direction. A court found that Overstock's arbitration requirement was unenforceable, because, as "browserwrap," the user was not adequately notified. Eventually, it seems that someone's going to have to make it clear what sorts of online terms are actually enforceable (if any). Until then, we're going to see a lot more lawsuits like this one.

Filed Under: agreements, arbitration, browserwrap, eulas
Companies: overstock

Psystar Apple Case Goes To Arbitration; Results May Be Secret

from the hopefully-not dept

As we noted before there even was a lawsuit, a legal battle between Apple and Mac-clone maker Psystar could represent a key legal battle in determining the enforceability of certain provisions in an end user license agreement (EULA). And, indeed, the case was looking interesting, as Apple sued and Psystar hit back with antitrust charges. However, as a bunch of readers have sent in, it appears that the case has moved to "Alternative Dispute Resolution" (ADR). Basically, rather than going through a lawsuit, the two sides have agreed to first take it to an arbitrator, who may be able to work out a settlement. There are many, many good reasons to go this route (many of them have to do with saving money on the lawsuit), but the fear is that any settlement then isn't a binding legal precedent at all, and the actual results may even be kept secret. I can understand why both sides would do this, but it may deprive the world of a useful precedent.

Filed Under: arbitration, clones, eula, settlement
Companies: apple, psystar

Norwegian Consumer Council Wants Special Complaint Board For Copyright Lawsuits

from the interesting-proposal...-but... dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how the Norwegian Consumer Council, an independent organization financed by the Norwegian government, was telling people not to sign letters the recording industry was demanding ISPs send to users, which would put liability for file sharing on those users without any sort of due process. Now the NCC is back suggesting a special independent committee to handle copyright infringement cases. From what's written, it sounds like it would act as a separate process for copyright holders to bring charges of copyright infringement, that avoids an expensive and overcrowded court systems, while still allowing individuals due process and a guarantee of other basic rights. The NCC proposes that this is a much better solution than, say, cutting off accused file sharers with no due process.

The idea definitely sounds a lot better than what's out there now -- but there could be unintended consequences as well. Here in the US, for example, we set up a special Federal Appeals court for patent lawsuits (CAFC), because of complaints about patent lawsuits clogging up courts where judges knew little about patent law, leading to bad outcomes. However, what happened was that CAFC became dominated by former patent attorneys (if not in numbers, in terms of influence) who significantly shifted the scope of patent law towards patent holders. In setting up a special court or arbitration system to deal with copyright infringement, there's a risk that it, too, could become dominated by interests focused solely on strengthening copyright law. While I definitely think it's a more interesting and productive proposal than most others out there, it's worth wondering if there would be unintended consequences. It still seems like the better long-term solution is for copyright holder to simply start embracing better business models.

Filed Under: arbitration, consumer council, copyright, norway

Once Again, Court Says Telco Can't Force Arbitration Over A Lawsuit

from the been-there,-done-that dept

This is hardly the first time we've seen such a case. In fact, the issue of whether or not companies can force their consumers to go to binding arbitration (which sides with the company somewhere around 95% of the time) over filing a class action lawsuit has been decided in favor of the consumers' rights to file the lawsuits over and over and over again. So, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that a court has told AT&T that it cannot force customers into binding arbitration rather than a class action lawsuit over bogus fees it charged.

Filed Under: arbitration, binding arbitration, class action
Companies: at&t

How Could MySpace.co.uk Have Been 'Abusively' Registered Six Years Before MySpace Existed?

from the time-warp dept

Arbitration rulings over domain name disputes sometimes have hard to understand results. Take, for example, the fact that MySpace has now won the right to the MySpace.co.uk domain. The arbitrator found that the domain name was an "abusive registration," despite the fact that the owner had registered it in 1997, six years before MySpace existed. However, by setting up a parked page and putting ads on it, the arbitrator found that the registration was apparently retroactively abusive. This seems open to rather widespread abuse. If you want to own someone else's domain name, all you have to do is build a bigger company based on that name and then point to their parked page and demand they hand it over?

Filed Under: abusive registrations, arbitration, domain names
Companies: myspace