Domain Registrars Sue Both ICANN And VeriSign
from the lawsuits-galore dept
Last week VeriSign made headlines for suing ICANN, and now, a group of domain registrars are suing both VeriSign and ICANN, so when they're done fighting with each other, they can team up to take on these other registrars. The registrars are claiming that the two are working to offer an illegal "wait list" service - which is part of what VeriSign's lawsuit against ICANN is about anyway. The wait list service would let people sign up to register a domain that was already registered, so that they would have first dibs in the even that it ever becomes unregistered. It looks like the registrars don't have a very strong case. They seem to be complaining about two things: (a) that this will dupe consumers and (b) this will cause financial hardship for themselves. As for duping consumers, I'm not sure that's true. As long as it's explained clearly upfront that you're not getting a guarantee on the domain, then there's nothing wrong with it, and it's a "buyer beware situation". As for the financial hardship on other registrars, they would need to prove that separately, and it might be a pretty difficult thing to prove. Already, a registrar could offer a similar service (and, in fact, many do). The only real issue here is whether or not VeriSign (with the help of ICANN) would be using their recognized monopoly to cause harm to these other providers, which seems like a stretch.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
I think what they're objecting to is the percieved preferential treatment that verisign is getting in this situation. If ICANN has anything to do with verisgn's domain waiting list, that would be an obvious conflict of interest. ICANN shouldn't be buddy buddy with any registrar. Especially one as notorious as verisign.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]