[2] One of the first steps was that Member States commissioned the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to produce a report on the tension between trademarks and domain names.
Published on 30 April 1999, the WIPO Report recommended the establishment of a "mandatory administrative procedure concerning abusive registrations",[3] which would allow for a "neutral venue in the context of disputes that are often international in nature."
At its meetings on August 25 and 26, 1999 in Santiago, Chile, the ICANN Board of Directors adopted the UDRP Policy,[5] based on the recommendations contained in the Report of the WIPO Internet Domain Name Process,[6] as well as comments submitted by registrars and other interested parties.
Following adoption by ICANN, the UDRP was launched on 1 December 1999, and the first case determined under it by WIPO was World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc v. Michael Bosman, involving the domain name worldwrestlingfederation.com.
[9] Since then WIPO provides a globally-used Jurisprudential Overview to summarize case law on a range of common and important substantive and procedural issues under the UDRP.
In addition, the procedures are more informal than litigation and the decision-makers are experts in such areas as international trademark law, domain name issues, electronic commerce, the Internet and dispute resolution.
[10] If a party loses a UDRP proceeding, in many jurisdictions they may still bring a lawsuit against the domain name registrant under local law.
For example, the administrative panel's UDRP decision can be challenged and in effect “overturned” in a U.S. court of law by means of e.g. the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
In this case, the expert found that the evidence showed the registrant was not using the domain name “wal-martsucks.com” for a criticism site but instead try to get a payout from Walmart.
[29] Evidence from previous expansions of the namespace, however, indicates the continued dominance of .com both in size and as the first-choice domain for cybersquatting (based on number of disputes).