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The Courts Government The Internet News

Second Lawsuit Filed Against ICANN (and VeriSign) 91

Posted by CowboyNeal from the more-the-merrier dept.
penciling_in writes "CircleID reports on a second lawsuit filed against ICANN and VeriSign. 'Newman & Newman, the law firm representing an ad hoc coalition of ICANN-accredited domain name registrars, has filed a lawsuit today against ICANN and VeriSign to Stop 'Anti-Consumer, Anti-Competitive' Wait List Service Implementation.' According to the report, "The complaint attacks ICANN and VeriSign based on 1) Unfair Trade Practices Act Violations; 2) Violation of California Business & Professions Code; 3) Unlawful Tying Arrangement; 4) Attempted Monopolization; 5) Violation of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act; 6) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage; 7) Breach of Contract; and 8) Declaratory Relief." Also a related website launched at fightwls.com."
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Second Lawsuit Filed Against ICANN (and VeriSign) More

Second Lawsuit Filed Against ICANN (and VeriSign)

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  • Tech guru predicts the winner: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:16AM (#8416436)
    The lawyers.

  • doh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:16AM (#8416437) Homepage
    I was kinda waiting for WLS. I am tried of doing a WHOIS on bunch of Domain Names, every morning, to see if they expired ;)

    • Re:doh! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by welsh git ( 705097 )
      > I was kinda waiting for WLS. I am tried of doing a WHOIS on bunch of Domain Names, every morning, to see if they expired ;) Fair enough, but why should Verisign have this monopoly ?

  • Too long (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:16AM (#8416443) Journal
    Just shorten the story to, Verisign/ICANN being sued for standard business practices...

    • Re:Too long (Score:5, Funny)

      by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:37AM (#8416544) Homepage
      Just shorten the story to, Verisign/ICANN being sued for standard business practices...

      By a bunch of direct marketeers. I would like someone to draw some blood from the V/I, but I am not very sure that the I would like any of the "platifs" to win anything. Besides a gratuitous mentioning of their lattitude, longitude and altitude in a submarine of course.

      • no kidding - look at the ridiculous company names of the people that are suing them.

        as much as i'd encourage anyone to sue verisign, this is ridiculous. they should be laughed out of court until they can come up with a legitimate business name...

        i mean, how do these companies even get registered:

        !$6.25 DOMAINS! NETWORK, INC.
        ! $ ! BID IT WIN IT, INC.

        great company names guys...

  • WLS can work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:19AM (#8416457) Homepage
    WLS can work on domains that are owned by businesses that that DO NOT have a registered trademark.

  • So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nharmon ( 97591 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:20AM (#8416467)
    I can buy the right to register Microsoft.Com if Microsoft Corp ever decides to stop renewing it. However, Microsoft could buy an 'insurance' which would prevent loss of the domain if someone forgot to renew it.

    Other than the same company is selling these two products, I find this comical at best. No way this should be illegal.

    Unless Verisign intends to make information about who owns 'domain insurance' private confidential, then I see no reason why both products cannot co-exist.

    As long as the person understands that they have about as much chance of registering microsoft.com as they do of winning the lottery, I see no reason why we should be holding consumers' hands and protecting them from their own stupidity.

    • Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:47AM (#8416579) Homepage
      As long as the person understands that they have about as much chance of registering microsoft.com as they do of winning the lottery, I see no reason why we should be holding consumers' hands and protecting them from their own stupidity.

      But if Microsoft buys insurance from Verisign, then there is NO chance at all that the person who paid for WLS on Microsoft.com will ever get the domain. Thus, at best it is fraudulent for Verisign to offer WLS and insurance, and at worse, it is a racketeering operation with Verisign putting the squeeze on their own customers ("Buy insurance, Microsoft, look how many people are on the WLS for your domain. You wouldn't want to lose your domain to one of these people, would you?").
      • The services exist for differet domains. MS can buy insurance becasue if there was no insurance and they let the domain reg. lapse, there is a good chance someone else would reguister the domain making a big nuiscence for ms. TWLS is for a domain that you think wil lapse soon, but don't want to have to be the first person to try and reg it before some bot that autoregisters names to resell gets it. Both make it more convinent for the consumers.
      • It would be logical to not let anyone buy WLS if the domain name is insured.

        Frankly I'm for the FCC canning ICANN and VeriSign and taking over the management of internet domain name registration/assignment. It is ridicules to have these two organizations work in sync to protect their monopoly.
      • Microsoft.com is not the best example to underlie the the points of the registrars. If you read the pdf carefully (well, I know its slashdot, but I hope dies last) I would especially recommend reading what the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harward Law School has to say about WLS. You can find in in first pdf on fightwls.org, background documents section.

        Despite the fact that ICANN was sued earlier by VeriSign, and ICANN being in the right concerning the despicable site-finder 'service', this
        • I currently use another domain vendor. They have a newer policy of automatically charging your credit cards when the domain expires to renew it. The email I got when it was time to renew was incomprehensible as to which doman was expiring. I complained a bit.

          It is possible that verisign is trying to deal with a real issue, that is, domains expiring undesireably, while making money on the deal, based on the competitior's reasoning for the credit card autodebit program. I do recall that ever once in a wh

    • Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:00PM (#8416625)
      A product that would only be purchased by a stupid or uninformed person is a scam. You can't say, "I told them it was worthless and they bought it anyway." Not if you have any moral fiber. There's no reason to tollerate such abuses, except for "entertainment value".
    • What about the cyber squating laws and copyright laws? This can be seen from the whole mikerowesoft.com game that was played out. Assuming that you get a domain via wls, then you are just opening up a can of worms for a copyright, trademark, and cyber squating lawsuits. Just because you failed to reregister a domain name does not mean that you intended to forfeit your right to that domain name. There is a domain name that I would love to have, however, I seriously doubt that if I used the WLS service and my

  • atlarge (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:22AM (#8416473)
    Icann may be bad, but Icann@large is worse. There are many idiots that believe that Icann was a kind of internet government and they talk about democratic organisation and the like but aren't able to speak with one voice or organise themselves with their radical democratic principles that often lead to "takeovers". I often came to the conclusion: They waste our time in bylaws discussion and non-working organisational bodies. The atlarge community failed.

    You cannot deal with the atlarge guys atlarge.

    And ITU to take over ICANN? I don't want this, not even more UN breakfast directors and phrase driven policy. Icann is is too American but they don't pollute the debate with policy issues that are off-topic. However IPR and Icann is also fully off-topic.

    I fully agree with Karl Auerbach, what's all this ICANN fuzz about.

    Wipe the politicians out. Let the admins in.

    • Re:atlarge (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No, the WLS people are worse. Their business model is lurking for domains to expire, registering them instantaneously upon expiration, then ransoming them back to the original owner for as much as they can manage. One valuable domain can easily reap a million dollars this way, so their clients buy domain names like lottery tickets.

      Of course, unlike real lotteries, they never publish the odds of winning and never have to reveal if they failed to get it first or didn't even bother to actually try to register

  • Just like a soap! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:23AM (#8416480) Journal

    Verisign: Mwahaha! Say hello to millions in advertisement revenue... We mean, Sitefinder!
    ICANN: Hey Verisign.
    Verisign: Yesh?
    ICANN: Fuck off.
    Verisign: ...
    Verisign: To hell with you, I'm going to sue you!
    Rest of the world: GO TO HELL, BOTH OF YOU!!!
    Return tomorrow for the next episode of "As the DNS resolves."!

  • Monopoly? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Melvin Daniels ( 757374 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:26AM (#8416495) Journal
    The monopolistic charges kind of caught my eye, because they ring kind of true. Why should ICANN be the only body governing these sorts of things?

  • Conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:27AM (#8416501)
    Network solutions shouldn't have been allowed to get into any business besides selling domain names and providing DNS. Anything else (like selling ads on their sitefinder) and there is a risk they will do something to DNS to promote their other products rather than improve usability (as they did). They shouldn't even be allowed to send unlimited e-mails to domain name owners.

    TLD registrars and DNS providers should be small companies, run by people who are content to do a job and make a small profit, but not have unlimited freedom/growth potential of a private company that doesn't provide any exclusive service to the public.

    I hope ICANN moves in that direction right away and not even bother with separate lawsuits for various small points.

    Propz to the GNAA

  • anti- W(hich) L(egal) S(tand) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jdkane ( 588293 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:32AM (#8416520)
    Also a related website launched at fightwls.com [fightwls.com]."

    Granted most people who are going to the site for a reason know what the acronymn means, but for goodness sake, for the rest of us, put up some type of description about what that acronym WLS means. -- "Waiting-List Service" -- and tell a bit more about it up front.

    • Re:anti- W(hich) L(egal) S(tand) (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      But, it's obviously bad! It needs to be stopped! Don't you see the graphic with the red crossed circle? It's unamerican to question what you're protesting...

      • Re:anti- W(hich) L(egal) S(tand) (Score:5, Informative)

        by jdkane ( 588293 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:37PM (#8416774)
        Just out of curiosity I looked up the domain and it's registered to a Canadian entity. Yes, it would appear as an American venture off the top. Could Canada be coming to the U.S.' rescue, or is the domain just harder to touch from outside the U.S.? Interesting indeed
        ---
        Domain fightwls.com

        Date Registered: 2004-1-23
        Date Modified: 2004-1-23
        Expiry Date: 2006-1-23
        DNS1: ns1.momentous.ca
        DNS2: ns2.momentous.ca

        Registrant

        Momentous.ca In Trust
        43 Auriga Drive
        Ottawa
        ON
        CA
        K2E 7Y8

        Administrative Contact

        Momentous.ca
        Wayne MacLaurin
        NOC
        43 Auriga Drive
        Nepean
        ON
        CA
        K2E 7Y8
        6137685100
        6138200777
        noc@momentous.ca

        Technical Contact

        Momentous.ca
        Wayne MacLaurin
        NOC
        43 Auriga Drive
        Nepean
        ON
        K2E 7Y8
        CA
        6137685100
        6138200777
        noc@momentous.ca

        Registrar: NameScout.com
    • I worked it out, on the basis that Wait List Service was the only sequence of three words beginning with capitalised WLS in the article/description/whatever-you-call-it.

  • WLS an "OPTION" or a "CONTINGENCY FEE"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Moblaster ( 521614 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:43AM (#8416566)
    This is not entirely clear but it is important. Are the lawyers here talking about a service that you will be charged for regardless of whether or not you can actually buy a domain? Verisign is in the position to run a simple waiting list program, because they control the root servers. But this lawsuit seems to imply that you will be charged just for the "right" to purchase, not based on whether or not a purchase actually goes through (in this case, depending on whether the original registrant renews ahead of time or not).

    What I want to know is why Verisign can hold domains for a few days after they "expire" to let someone renew them. Other registrars will lose them right away (in some cases, to Verisign).

    • Re:WLS an "OPTION" or a "CONTINGENCY FEE"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tonyray ( 215820 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:31PM (#8416748)
      Verisign not only holds the domains for several *weeks* after they expire, they also lock them for several weeks *before* they expire so they cannot be transferred to another registrar. They do the latter because they charge twice as much as just about anyone else and once you get your bill from them, they know you will jump ship. By locking the domain you are stuck with either paying them or having your domain resolution halted for several weeks. Now, with a waiting list, Verisign can also threaten you with losing the domain altogether.
  • We all know that due to a large amount of competition for the (rather ambigious) domain fightwls.com, they coalition was only forced to utilize the waitlist service... FightWLs = FightWildLawyers? Scott

  • You know.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Loconut1389 ( 455297 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:51PM (#8417176)
    After the sitefinder thing, i wasnt happy with verisign, i didnt like them, but I wasnt stark raving mad. They at least heeded the will of ICANN and everyone else, eventually. I might have still gotten a digital certificate or something since they really are good at those. But now, I would very much like to put them out of business. They are so off in their thinking that I can't stand to have them still in business. The sad thing is I am almost sure that they will win their case because the judges are not edjucated enough with regards to computers. The court room is not a technical place, and money and big guns wins over the technical truth. I dearly hope that someone can somehow put verisign in its place and stop this insatiable and unreasonable greed. Its not so much that theyre greedy, but how theyre going about satiating it. Few things not in my direct personal life infuriate me this much.

  • I just thought of a great new game (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mixel ( 723232 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @02:33PM (#8417392) Homepage
    It's like the old "Rock, Paper, Scissors"... Only its called "Sue, Copy, PublicDomain"!

    Sue vs Copy -> Sue Wins
    Sue vs Public -> Public Wins
    Copy vs Public -> Copy Wins

    A game for artists, lawyers, hackers, CEOs and the whole family.

  • hrmmm (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ShadowRage ( 678728 )
    the whole WLS thing should be illegal IMHO, that's like someone setting up a waiting list on your house, and pressuring you to pay extra money to keep your property though you've already paid for it and paid it off.

  • Survivor: Supreme Court (Score:3, Funny)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @03:30PM (#8417704)
    This should make a great immunity challenge for NBC's upcoming: Survivor: Supreme Court

  • Step 1. Round up 50 of the friendliest, most trustworthy ISP/registrar-type companies you can find.
    Step 2. Create 50 TLDs, give one to each company.
    Step 3. Forbid them from selling or renting their TLDs away, to ensure that one of them doesn't wind up with all 50.
    Step 4. Watch as competition drives registration prices down, and keeps the companies in check.
  • GoDaddy.com offers a "backorder" service. There was a .com version of a .net name I owned and the owner wasn't doing anything with it, so I wanted to grab it and point it at my .net. I knew it was expiring in a few months, so I figured I'd try to backorder it in case it wasn't renewed.

    The "backorder" service hovered and watched the status of the domain name, sending me updates when anything changed.

    When it expired, they let me know.

    When the original registrar put a 30-day Grace Period lock on it after keeping it in expiration mode for 45 days, the service let me know.

    When the original registrar released it back into the wild, the backorder bot registered it in my name and let me know.

    But if that name hadn't been expiring within a year of my buying the service, it would have been a total waste of money for me to buy the service. And if the prior owner had established a site with any traffic at that domain, then I would have faced a potential battle once I grabbed it. I made sure that it was not in use and was expiring within a few months before I bought the service.

    Currently, VeriSign refers you to SnapNames.com for backordering. I'm not sure about any new wait list service they're planning to offer. Here's the differences and similarities between GoDaddy's service and the SnapNames Service:

    • First and foremost, SnapNames costs $69 per year per domain name. GoDaddy's service costs $18.95 per year per domain name.

    • Each offers you the ability to check the whois for the expiration date on the doman, but both will also let you get to the checkout phase with domains that won't expire for 4 years or more in your cart and never automatically warn you.

    • GoDaddy will not offer you the backorder on really prominent .com domain names like Yahoo, Google, and Amazon (though it did on IMDb, Altavista, and Wired). SnapNames will.
    • Both warn in the fine print (SnapNames in their T&C, GoDaddy in their "tell me more") that there's no guarantee you'll get the domain even if it expires, though only SnapNames explicitly warns that there might be competition for the name if it becomes available.
    Honestly, the services can easily glean date of expiration information from most of the WHOIS records. If some clueless idiot is about to spend $69 a pop to stake backorders on domains that won't expire until 2008, does either service have a responsibility to overtly warn them that this is a waste, or can they bury everything a link or two away from the process and claim it was the buyer's responsibility to check things out?

    It would be nice if the courts held consumer service/purchase agreements to a higher standard... requiring a "for dummies" version of the fine print that hits the major points in plain language to be on the front of the order form in standard type. But they don't, and if you're buying a service online, it's your job to know what the heck you're buying.

    - Greg

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