Towards an understanding of global ‘private ordering’ in ICANN: text mining 23 years of Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) Decisions

To assess the prospect of the ICANN Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) enabling global ‘private ordering’ for domain-name disputes, this study analyses textual data from 75,590 UDRP complaints involving 142,423 domain names. Using data provided by DNS Research Federation’s Data Analytics Platform (DAP.Live), we ask three major research questions: To what extent does the UDRP process differ between resolution bodies? What are the most prevalent themes as represented by keywords and topics? To what extent have these topics changed over time? Using descriptive statistics and a series of inductive text-mining techniques (term-frequency, term frequency-inverse document frequency, and topic modelling), we find substantial evidence for the ongoing stability of the UDRP. Case growth has continued since 2000. There is strong global support for two of the six DRSPs, WIPO and NAF. Average decision time varies substantially by DRSP with WIPO at 63 days and CAC at 36. Panelists heavily employ precedent when adjudicating complaints. Trademark holders continue to dominate the process, winning about 90% of complaints; however, successfully contested cases show strong UDRP jurisprudence supporting non-trademark holders. Topic models created capture both abstract (jurisprudential) and concrete (cybercrime) concepts and show spikes in cybercrime during COVID-19.