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20 July 2018

Victoria’s Secret win highlighted in Nominet dispute report

Victoria’s Secret and Jaguar Land Rover were among the companies that filed complaints under Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) in 2017, according to the .uk registry’s latest report.

The registry handled 712 clashes, with most cases (87.5%) involving .co.uk domains and the remainder covering . org.uk and .me.uk.

Established in 2001, the DRS seeks to settle disputes through mediation or, failing that, through an independent expert decision. Nominet said the service allows .uk disputes to be settled efficiently and cost effectively.

In 2016, the DRS dealt with 703 disputes, nine fewer than last year, while its quietest year to date was 2013 (674 disputes).

A total of 783 domains were involved in the 703 disputes at the DRS in 2017, and Nominet claimed these domains represent 0.0065% of those on the register.

Just over half the complaints (55%) resulted in a domain transfer, compared to 53% the year before.

In total, 15% of the disputes were resolved by the domain name being voluntarily transferred to the complainant after the complaint was submitted. Nominet’s report said only 10% of disputes were resolved in this way in 2016.

Russell Haworth, CEO of Nominet, said: “We can see in the numbers that the DRS is continuing to prove a useful tool for .uk customers.”

Mediated cases last year took, on average, 56 days to come to a conclusion, compared to just 47 days in 2016. Cases resolved by a summary expert decision took the same amount of time as they did the year before (62 days).

Companies from 29 different countries brought disputes to the DRS last year, including Jaguar Land Rover, Virgin Enterprises, Sony, and Victoria’s Secret.

American lingerie designer Victoria’s Secret brought a complaint against a London-based beautician operating the website victoriasecretbeauty.co.uk. The beautician claimed not to have known about the famous lingerie brand when registering the domain.

As the beautician worked in the beauty industry, the DNS said this was not a credible story and transferred the domain name to Victoria’s Secret.

Nominet estimated that the DRS saved users around £7 million ($9.1 million) in court costs and legal fees last year. The domain registry released its report earlier this month.

This story was first published on  TBO.

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