One of the major UDRP providers, Forum, has announced changes to its UDRP Supplemental Rules intended to address certain privacy and procedural issues. The relevant changes are outlined below and the complete Rules can be found here.
Rule 5 Change
When Forum communicates with respondents, it will rely on the email address provided by the Respondent or otherwise, on the email address provided by the Registrar of the domain name that the Respondent owns.
Rule 7 Change
This most significant changes come under Rule 7 which provides that either party can still send additional submissions to Forum, which may or may not be accepted by panellists. Previously, there was an automatic right to file an additional submission, but now it a right qualified in the above manner.
There was, and is, no automatic right to file additional submissions under the ICANN UDRP Rules themselves and it is up to the panellist to ask for additional material if it is wanted.
In order for the additional submissions under the amended Forum Rule to be valid, they must be sent along with proof that the submission has also been sent to the opposing party.
Previously there was a $400 fee associated with each additional submission, but that has now been removed. There was also a time limit imposed on sending additional submission of five calendar days after the original submissions were received by Forum. The time limit has now been removed.
Rule 17 Change
This section outlines the filing fees for each type of submission which have now been increased by $30 (US).