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SWITCH MAY TURN ON DISPUTE RESOLUTION FOR .CH
27th August, 2003
A majority of members of the Internet community in Switzerland, including foreign domain name holders, would welcome the development of a Dispute Resolution Service for .ch domain names. This is the principal conclusion of a study commissioned by SWITCH (The Swiss Education & Research Network - operators of the .ch registry) and the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM).
The positive respondents, some 54% of the survey, would welcome a simple, rapid and low-cost procedure to uphold their rights in domain names. This is not surprising as currently those wishing to challenge a .ch registration must resort to the Swiss courts, a route which SWITCH rather optimistically describes as "highly efficient and inexpensive compared with legal systems abroad".
In common with most registries, SWITCH is legally obliged to block the transfer of a domain name or make it inactive if served with a suitable court order from a competent authority. Equally, SWITCH may block transfer on commencement of court action seeking deletion, revocation or transfer of a domain name. This, however, is as far as it can go without its own dispute resolution service, such as Nominet UK's DRS.
Interestingly, more than 10% of those questioned in the survey stated that they had already been involved in disputes regarding domain names, even though SWITCH indicates that Swiss disputes have been running at only a third of the level of those in neighbouring German-speaking countries. 90% of these disputes were apparently resolved out of court, with a sum of money being paid for the domain name in a small number of cases.
More details at: http://www.demys.net/news/2003/08/27_switch.htm
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