Thanks for joining the forum mdmgeneral. It's good to have someone with firsthand experience!
Did you have legal representation? How easy or difficult was it to communicate with the arbitrator? Was your website/parking page accessible during the arbitration?
I am attempting to appeal the decision now, as the rules of procedure were violated in that the decision was not made within 90 days of arbitration commencement- so I won't go into 100% of the details yet. Once I see where this goes and whether or not I have to proceed with legal action in Indian courts, I will give a fully detailed account of my experience with documentation, correspondence, and commentary to help everyone understand the process from my first hand experience.
For now, I can answer some general questions and give a few opinions:
I did not have legal representation, but I consulted with a local attorney in the USA for guidance in understanding the process and how my case should be presented. I will likely hire Indian legal representation if the decision is not set aside due to the violation of the rules of procedure by the arbitrator, which technically renders the decision void and therefore unenforceable. If I do end up hiring Indian legal representation, I will likely also present a request to have the decision overturned due to the fact that the accusations the decision is based on are not factually supported in any way.
It was extremely difficult to communicate with the arbitrator. The legal department at nixi and the arbitrator would request acknowledgment that I received their emails and attachments, but when I requested the same, I received no response. I had to contact the legal department at nixi after I sent several unanswered emails to the arbitrator. I received a rude response from the legal department informing me they could not be involved in the arbitration process and they basically told me that if the arbitrator did not answer my emails, it was not their problem. I cc'd the arbitrator on this email and finally received a rude response from the arbitrator letting me know that they had received all my emails and to not contact nixi any more. This was after at least a month of waiting for a response from the arbitrator to various emails I sent. On one occasion, the arbitrator sent out an email to all parties which referenced an enclosure, but did not attach the enclosure. I emailed the arbitrator twice to request they send the enclosure and received no response to that enquiry to date. I really got a vibe from the legal department at nixi and the arbitrator that they felt I was wasting their time by presenting a solid defense and not just rolling over.
The original complaint was very weak. I assume the complainant did not expect me to respond. After I sent my response, the complainant was given a week long extension to reply to my response. Their reply was full of blatant lies and even misstated the facts presented in their own exhibits. I asked for an extension to respond to their reply to present evidence and point out their misleading misstatements of their own exhibits. I did not receive a response to this request until I contacted nixi as noted in the previous paragraph.
My website had plenty of legitimate, non-commercial content that did not relate to the complainant's business, and had no advertisements or any other implementation of a revenue generation model. This content was based explicitly on the meaning of the generic term that made up the URL. The site had been active for close to a year prior to the filing of the complaint; and per google's cache, I was able to prove that the site was still active just prior to the complaint. To answer your question- they still locked my site and stopped pointing it to my name servers. I'm not sure if this is standard protocol in these cases, or if my registrar did something wrong when they locked it. Needless to say, the domain stopped resolving to my website.
Another thing to note is that the decision was not made based on the evidenced facts presented by the parties, but the
personal feelings and unsupported assumptions of the arbitrator. The role of an arbitrator is to weigh the evidenced facts presented by the parties and make a decision solely based on the content of those facts and how they are interpreted when law is applied to them. Their position is very similar to a judge. Their personal feelings or beliefs should have no bearing on the case. They should be impartial and unbiased when making their decision.
The arbitrator in my case admitted that the facts I presented were legitimate and made a strong case in their literal nature, but based her decision solely on her unsupported accusations that I had ulterior motives and that I was a cyber squatter. I was offered money by the complainant for the domain prior to the complaint and told them it was not for sale. I'm not sure how this makes me a cyber squatter. I paid $3.43 for the original registration- I could have made a nice profit if my intention was to sell. I also have other generic Indian domains with content being added to them on a regular basis. Facts and evidence are just that and an arbitrator needs to judge them based on their literal nature. It is unethical for an arbitrator or judge to make accusations and assumptions that are not supported by the facts because they feel that something else might be going on.
The accusation that I was a cyber squatter was not supported by any evidence except the the arbitrator stating that they
assumed I had ulterior motives. Just based on the domain name, the case could have gone either way and even if I still lost, I would have respected the decision if it was made properly and was factually supported. I have a very difficult time believing in this dispute and arbitration process after being personally involved in the process. I feel like Indian domains are extremely high risk investments that can be taken from under your feet at any time. It makes me nervous to spend time writing content for my Indian sites because at any time, they can be unfairly taken away because a company in India somehow owns a trademark on a term like "all." With renewal rates at 12-14 dollars, I'm starting to think they aren't worth the gamble.
*I guess i should add some insight to "all." This was not my domain, but since I used it as an example, I should point out that The Pantaloon Group did not own a trademark for the term "All" in it's generic sense, only when combined with unique phrases that applied to the trade they used it in. These circumstances were also the same in my case. I was accused of not performing due diligence to ensure the term I registered was not trademarked in India, but I did, in fact, verify that it was not trademarked in India prior to registration. It was PART of a registered trademark made up of a unique phrase that applied specifically to use in specific trades and applications, but the single generic term was not trademarked when used in its generic form. The next thing we will see is companies winning cases for names like the.in, is.in, india.in, of.in, etc. because they have unique phrases trademarked that contain those terms. I'm not sure if the intellectual property laws in India are flawed this badly, or if it's just a poor interpretation by the arbitrators in all these cases.