As a result of the conflict in Ukraine, the World Intellectual Property Organization is no longer considering allegations of cybersquatting against domains ending in.ua.
On the website of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), there is a remark that reads as follows: “In consultation with the.UA Registry, the Center has concluded that it is not in a position to accept new.UA files in accordance with the.UA Policy until further notice.”
The decision was made because Ukrainian registrars and registrants may no longer have the ability to fully engage in arbitration processes, according to Hostmaster, the.ua registry.
According to Hostmaster, the service will get back up and running after the end of the period in which the country was under martial law.
A variation of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is used in Ukraine. This version of the policy has the same three fundamental criteria for a finding of cybersquatting; however, the most important distinction is that domains must be “registered OR used in bad faith” rather than “registered AND used in bad faith.”
Since 2019, WIPO has been in charge of addressing issues pertaining to.ua. Roughly sixty instances have been dealt with up to this point.
For much the same set of reasons, Hostmaster has decided to put a halt to the deletion of domain names until martial law is lifted.