VeriSign Launches Anti-Trust Suit Against ICANN

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

02 March 2004

After Internet technical co-ordinator ICANN attacked url registrar VeriSign last year for trying to offer new services to registrants, VeriSign has now filed an antitrust lawsuit against its tormentor.

VeriSign's suit, filed last week in Los Angeles, alleges that ICANN stifled VeriSign's attempts to introduce new services the company says would benefit Internet users, in particular by blocking SiteFinder, a VeriSign effort to direct internet users who mistyped domain names, or entered non-existent addresses to a VeriSign search page offering alternatives, including paid-placement links.

ICANN, a non-profit corporation which was established in 1998 with Government support in order to introduce competition in the market for registering domain names, has yet to comment on the suit. VeriSign has a contract with ICANN to operate the .com and .net registries for Internet addresses.

"For us, at the end of the day, this is a contract dispute about ICANN's broadening ... its jurisdiction to become a de facto regulator of the Internet," said Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president of government relations.

When ICANN asked VeriSign to remove the SiteFinder service last year, the company did so, but said it would be holding ICANN "fully accountable" for the closure of the service. EVP and general manager of VeriSign, Russell Lewis announced that: "We haven't been able to get our side of the story out and I didn't think we were going to get a fair hearing if we didn't take it (SiteFinder) down."

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