Legal instruments

UDRP

An arbitration procedure for transferring or cancelling a domain registered in bad faith, used when abuse reports have failed.

Also known as domain name dispute · Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy

UDRP is a contractual arbitration process that every registrant of a generic top-level domain agrees to when they register. It exists to resolve trademark disputes over domain names without going to court, and it can order a domain transferred to the complainant or cancelled outright.

A complaint has to establish three things together: the domain is identical or confusingly similar to a mark the complainant has rights in, the registrant has no legitimate interest in it, and it was registered and is being used in bad faith. Failing any one of the three fails the case.

It is deliberate and expensive relative to an abuse report. Cases run weeks rather than hours and carry filing fees per dispute, which is why it is a last resort for domains that matter and that no faster channel has moved, not a routine tool for volume takedowns.

Its advantage over an abuse report is finality. An abuse suspension can be reversed or reissued elsewhere; a UDRP transfer puts the domain in the brand's own portfolio, where it cannot be re-registered against them.

How Fraudox handles it

Scam domain takedown

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