[alac-forum] Domain Dispute Resolution Cost-Prohibitive
I represent a very, very low-budget not-for-profit. We hold annual conferences
each year, and primarily use our web presence for information distribution. For
whatever reason, our domain name was not renewed after our last conference, and
as we are preparing our next, we learned that a $150 fee would be required to
extract it from the redemption area. We figured that it would be released
within a month and that we could wait, and simply reregister it. Immediately
after it was released, a foreign company registered our domain name and put up
advertising material seemingly related to the purpose of our organization but
that links to search sites and other lude material.
I found several places in the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy that
put this foreign company in clear violation of the registering rules, and that
we have a right to our domain name. But, arbitration runs in the thousands of
dollars, a figure our small non-profit can, in no way, afford.
How are we, the small guys, supposed to defend ourselves against these hijackers
when the only rules that are in place are designed for those with much more
power than us?
Please figure out a solution to this problem.
-Adam Levy, NUJLS