Dispute Resolution Policy Review Submission

From:		Steven Heath
Received:	22 December 2005

I have two comments that relate to the draft dispute resolution
service policy and several relating to the layout and style of the
actual document.

B1.1

I have concerns that only one of these approaches is required for the
Office of the DNC to have deemed to have sent the Complaint to the
Respondent.

I am not sure of the value of listing the options under B1.1.2 and
B1.1.3 as equal to B1.1.1. The use of a postmaster is based on RFC
2124 and it is by no means a reliable way of reaching the registrant
due to the wide use of domain name by organisations and individuals.
Relying on the details provided by the Complainant seems unusual as
well.

Perhaps if B1.1.2 and B1.1.3 were only used should contact information
in the registration details prove to be out of date or otherwise
incorrect? This would allow the data held with the registry to be
assumed to be the best approach and should it be proven wrong then the
Office of the DNC can use the other methods listed.

B4

The Respondent is provided 15 working days to submit a response. While
in general this should be sufficient time I could easily foresee when
a person is traveling or unavailable to be able to respond in the time
allowed. Individuals often hold domain names and they would be the
only ones to receive communication regarding a dispute.

I understand that increasing this time could delay every proceeding
but that would be a better option that allowing some Respondents to be
unduly impacted due to reasons unrelated to the proceedings.

General Comments

1.	This policy document appears unique in not referring to InternetNZ
and/or Office of the DNC in the third person. It would be useful that
all .nz polices are consistent in this approach.

2.	Under Definitions the term Domain Name has 'sub-domain'. This is
not a term widely used in the .nz TLD. Second level name or 2LD would
be a more appropriate term.

3.	Also under Definitions the term Domain Name Hijacking has the word
'bad faith'. I cannot see the meaning or reference to this word
anywhere else in the document. However the term 'unfair' is used.
Should the term 'bad faith' be defined or should it be replaced with
'unfair'?

4.	A registrar can defend their approach to listing the registrant's
details under their name by citing section 5.1.5. Should it be made
explicit that a registrar, or a related party cannot use this clause,
as it would breach other .nz policies in that regard?

5.	Reading 5.4 does this mean that if after 3 years of a domain name
first being registered, or this policy being implemented, that no
dispute can be lodged?

6.	Formatting on the copy I printed was inconsistent. Sometimes a
space was after the section number and sometimes not. An example is
15.1. At first reading it appeared that a section 15.1.A  started with
the word 'Domain'. Upon second review it was section 15.1 with the 'A'
as the starting word of the sentence. This formatting appears from
section 13 onwards in the document I printed.

7.	Part B has a great detail of duplication of the actual policy that
has already been documented embedded with the operational/procedure
material. A review of what policy material that has already been
outlined is required in this part of the document is warranted.

Summary

In general I see no reason why this draft policy should not be
implemented after consideration of the points I have raised.