FUNDING: Ecodir, an online dispute forum set up by several international universities with support from the European Commission, will be based and hosted in Dublin shortly following the injection of €100,000 Government funding.

The pilot project, which has faced an uncertain future since the collapse of its software vendor eResolution two months ago, will be hosted here until a pilot phase is complete in December, an associate dean at UCD said yesterday.

Mr Brian Hutchinson, who is co-ordinating Ecodir at UCD, said the college was aiming to relaunch the project sometime in March and would invite EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne, to attend.

The Commission has provided €500,000 funding for the project which involves universities and research institutes in Belgium, Canada and France. The project is part of the Commission's investigation into how consumer complaints in the online world can be handled more efficiently.

Ecodir, which can be accessed at www.ecodir.org, is a web forum established last October which enables consumers to lodge complaints and attempt to resolve disputes with companies arising from online transactions.

It is based on software which enables online negotiation, mediation and recommendation overseen by mediation experts. When a consumer lodges a complaint Ecodir contacts the offending firm and offers a mediation service.

The system has processed almost 100 cases and has signed up 25 mediator's from some of the top international universities. On most occasions the firm agreed to hear the grievance of the consumer and a settlement was reached before mediation was required, said Mr Hutchinson.

But despite its initial success in a pilot format the Ecodir project faced an uncertain future until recently following the demise of Canadian software firm eResolution which developed the system.

"eResolution folded just before Christmas... for a while it looked like it might put Ecodir in jeopardy," he said. "Our next move is to place it on a server in Ireland and bring it to the next level."

Mr Hutchinson said the rights to use the eResolution software for the project where now held by the Dublin-based firm, Arbitration of International Disputes (AIDL), which manages the Ecodir project.

AIDL is also investigating commercial applications for the software and whether companies would be willing to pay a fee to use this type of system as a type of outsourced customer service.

"A group in the US called Squaretrade are already doing online mediation for auction site Ebay. They charge $30 for each mediation case," said Mr Hutchinson.

Ecodir could possibly be used as a type of small claims court for online disputes. Although the strength of a mediation recommendation would probably not be as binding as an arbitration ruling in business.