Second Lawsuit Filed Against ICANN (and VeriSign)

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."

Tech guru predicts the winner:

The lawyers.

doh!

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 ;)

Too long

Just shorten the story to, Verisign/ICANN being sued for standard business practices...

Re:Too long

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.

WLS can work

WLS can work on domains that are owned by businesses that that DO NOT have a registered trademark.

So let me get this straight...

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...

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?").

Re:So let me get this straight...

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".

Re:So let me get this straight...

Well, I sold a digital recording cable converter right on ebay last month. One that normally has a hard drive. I mentioned right on the bid page that the hard drive was removed and that it didn't have a smartcard.

This morning I got email from the buyer 'where's the hard drive? where's the smart card?'

Never underestimate the intelligence of somebody willing to give you money.

atlarge

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.

Just like a soap!

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?

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?

Re:Monopoly?

Because 2 DNSs would mean 2 internets. (Unless there was an uberDNS, but then you would just move the problem up a layer)

Conflict of interest

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)

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)

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
[e-mail]

Technical Contact

Momentous.ca
Wayne MacLaurin
NOC
43 Auriga Drive
Nepean
ON
K2E 7Y8
CA
6137685100
6138200777
[e-mail]

Registrar: NameScout.com

WLS an "OPTION" or a "CONTINGENCY FEE"?

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"?

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.

And how did they purchase that domain name?

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..

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

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

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

This should make a great immunity challenge for NBC's upcoming: Survivor: Supreme Court

How to Put the DNS Fiasco to an End

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.

Waiting Lists Work... For Smart Domain Buyers

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

Re:Nice try

No, no. Verisign is suing ICANN for Sitefinder. Crazy, mixed up world, isn't it?

KFG

Re:Nice try

No, no. Verisign is suing ICANN for Sitefinder. Crazy, mixed up world, isn't it?

What do you call a thousand lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?

( wait for it...)

A good start!

Thank you, thank you... And yes I pulled that from a Tom Hanks movie [imdb.com] and it was likely and old joke at that point.