17 e-Mediation - Mediate.com

Noam Ebner
3.1 Organizational Structures for E-Mediation Services
This section will focus on the prevailing trends and applications in offering e-mediation
services.
3.1.1 Regional versus Global
Some service providers hold themselves out as global practitioners, not limiting themselves
to any one region. 14 Others, while not explicitly limiting the scope of their operations, do
so implicitly by including comments on their website referencing particular areas, organizations
and legal issues, by the language/s services are offered in, by a country-specific
domain name or by the language in which the website itself is in. Still other service providers
limit themselves explicitly to specific countries or areas. 15
3.1.2 Individual Practitioners versus Institutional “Service Providers”
From the start, examination and discussion of e-mediation (and ODR in general) has
tended to focus on “service providers” and not on practitioners. This probably had multiple
reasons, some of which are suggested below.
First, this was indeed the actual business model often employed; many of the early
ventures in e-mediation were run by a service provider who kept a roster of mediators.
OnlineResolution kept a roster of 600 mediators and arbitrators, and SquareTrade had
about 300 mediators on their roster. 16 The sites themselves were operated as a business
which performed intake of cases, collection of fees, assignment to mediators from the
roster, provision of training and support to neutrals, etc.
Second, it is the nature of internet commerce that individuals set up a business and
present it as a larger-scale business. This is not only in order to impress; on the web, your
catchy name and web domain are part of your branding strategy. “InternetMediation-
Team.com” will always be more effective than NoamtheMediator.com.
Third, the previous point is particularly true given the e-mediation targeted market
and clients. Early service providers were attempting to engage with e-commerce entities
and integrate themselves into their b2b and b2c operations. A corporate veneer and
framework is much more likely to succeed in that.
14 Examples would include Juripax and TheMediationRoom.
15 E.g., Cybersettle (limiting comments), emediation.nl (language and domain name), and the British Columbia
Family Mediation Roster (explicit geographical limitation). An interesting provider in this regard is ODR-
World. This website does not limit the scope of its operations, but the same service provider also operates
ODRChina, ODRMalaysia, ODRAustralia and ODRIndia, servicing these countries specifically. In essence,
it contextualizes its services by offering services to diverse regions in South East Asia and Australia.
16 See Rule (2002).
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