The Justice Department has shut down its antitrust probe against Network Solutions without taking any action, the company says.
The probe started in 1997 and focused on Network Solutions management of a valuable customer name and Internet address database, with rivals complaining NSI moved too slowly to add new addressed, according to Bloomberg News.
Justice had said it was looking only for anti-competitive practices in the Internet address registration business.
This is the latest in a run of legal victories for the dominant player in the Net address registration game. On Feb. 1, NSI announced European antitrust enforcers stopped their probe as well, Bloomberg says. That probe involved determining whether the company hurt rivals by locking in customers.
Last week a U.S. federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of a private antitrust suit against the company, while on Jan. 18 the Supreme Court would not revive a suit claiming NSI unlawfully collected taxes from address registrants, Bloomberg says.
"Network Solutions is extremely pleased that the Department of Justice has ended its investigation," chairman Michael Daniels said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg. "NSI lost its government-endorsed monopoly over the domain-name business in June. More than 100 other companies, including PSINet and Concentric Network, are now certified to assign domain names in competition with NSI."
