VeriSign Sued over Web Service

SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
edited March 2004 in Science & Tech
A $100 million antitrust lawsuit has been filed against Verisign, which is accused of hijacking misspelled and unassigned Web addresses with a service it launched this week.
VeriSign's new SiteFinder service takes searches for ".com" and ".net" Web addresses that are not spelled correctly or have not yet been registered and redirects them to a VeriSign Web page that includes options and pay-for-placement topic links. Since it was launched on Monday, the SiteFinder service has drawn widespread criticism from Internet users who complain that VeriSign has overstepped its authority. However, VeriSign says it is merely offering a convenient service.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Orlando, Florida, alleges antitrust violations, unfair competition and violations of the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and asks the court to order VeriSign to put a halt to the service, said Robert Hart, a spokesman for Popular Enterprises LLC, the Orlando-based parent company of search provider Netster.com. According to the lawsuit, Mountain View, California-based VeriSign has been using its position as the keeper of the master list of all Web addresses ending in ".com" and ".net," also called domain names, to unfair advantage.

The full report:
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=3471297

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    VeriSign has filed a countersuit against ICANN. GoDaddy has pledged $100,000 to defend ICANN. ICANN wants to have Verisign's rights to redirect people dropped, the DOJ is involved and that was where the headline came from.

    Sources, multiple-- Techrepublic, eWeek, GoDaddy in a direct customer email to me, and others. We will have to see how things play out in reality.

    John D.
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