The number of disputes increased by 12 % compared to 2021, representing a cumulative growth of 56 % since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. .com, the generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD), continues to be the domain subject to most popular disputes, accounting for 78% of the total cases. As for country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), the most disputed domain name was .co, country code for Colombia, with 238 disputes —more than twice the number of cases of the Chinese ccTLD.
The number of cases has been increasing significantly for the past nine years. In 2020, WIPO reported a milestone of 50,000 procedures under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) in which parties from more than 180 countries have participated since the service’s creation in 1999.
The main reasons for the increase in domain name disputes in 2022 can be attributed to the overall increase in domain name registrations, cybersquatting, e-commerce growth, and the ongoing effort by trademark owners to protect their brands on the internet.
