The registry for the United Kingdom country-code top-level domain, Nominet, has been criticised by dispute experts for its proposals for a new system of domain dispute resolution.

The new system is intended to speed up the dispute resolution process. As most disputes filed with Nominet are not contested by the defendant (it is not economically sound for a cybersquatter to pay legal fees to contest the ownership of a domain), under the new system, unopposed claims would result in an automatic transfer of the Domain Name in question to the claimant. It would cost £10 to file a dispute, and a further £200 to have the domain transferred. This is considerably less than the £750 currently payable, and the price reduction would be possible because no experts would have to be called in to rule on the case.

There are two major problems with the new proposed system. Firstly, although claimants could potentially save £540 in Nominet fees, in order to submit an claim, they will be required to fill out the same lengthy and detailed document explaining why they have a right to the disputed domain, and the current owner does not. Since it is advisable to get a lawyer's help for this, legal fees tend to far outweigh the fees charged by Nominet for making a claim.

Secondly, some commentators are concerned about abuse of the system by "reverse domain hijackers" who would take advantage of the fact that many domain registrants fail to keep their contact details up-to-date. Since silence would be taken to mean assent in the new system, legitimate domain owners who had simply forgotten to update their email address might risk losing their domain to unscrupulous claimants.

Pinsent Masons' web magazine OUT-LAW.COM argues that a better system would be to require claimants to submit only a summary claim for the domain name, which would have to be supplemented by a full claim document if the claim were disputed by the defendant. Secondly, it suggests that Nominet introduce the new scheme on a "rolling" basis, whereby new domain registrants, and those renewing domains, will be reminded at the time that it is important to keep their contact details up-to-date if they wish to maintain ownership of their domain.