I MISSED THIS ONE --Appeals Court Revives the CFIT Anti-Trust Suit Against VeriSign

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090605_appeals_court_revives_cfit_anti_trust_suit_against_verisign/


Back in 2005 an organization called the Coalition for Internet  
Transparency (CFIT) burst upon the scene at the Vancouver ICANN  
meeting, and filed an anti-trust suit against VeriSign for their  
monopoly control of the .COM registry and of the market in  
expiring .COM domains. They didn't do very well in the trial court,  
which granted Verisign's motion to dismiss the case. But yesterday the  
Ninth Circuit reversed the trial court and put the suit back on track.
In the decision [PDF], a three judge panel told the district court  
that the suit has enough basis to proceed. CFIT claims that VeriSign  
engaged in a variety of predatory conduct including financial  
pressure, astroturf lobbying, and vexatious lawsuits to get ICANN to  
renew the .COM agreement on very favorable terms, including what is in  
practice eternal renewal of the contract with annual price increases.  
As part of that process, VeriSign settled the suit, paid ICANN several  
million dollars, and promised never to lobby against ICANN again.
In the 20 page decision, the appeals court basically said that CFIT's  
claims about the .COM renewal, the domain market, and the expiring  
domain market were plausible, crediting a brief from the Internet  
Commerce Association for explaining the expiring domain market to  
them. They note that an earlier case from 2001 that didn't find a  
separate market in expiring domains appears no longer relevant, since  
the domain market has evolved a lot since then.

snip


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