VeriSign's antitrust lawsuit against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has been tossed by a federal judge, giving the Internet registrars a second blow in their bid to hold ICANN accountable for the decommissioned SiteFinder service.
U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ruled August 26 that VeriSign can't accuse ICANN of conspiracy or of being dominated by supporting organizations that include VeriSign competitors. The ruling came on an amended complaint the court allowed after dismissing VeriSign's original suit in May.
"The U.S. federal court's decision serves as another important affirmation of ICANN's multi-stakeholder participatory model and reaffirms the ICANN structure," says John Jeffrey, ICANN's general counsel, in a statement. "ICANN is not subject to capture by any commercial or other interest, including VeriSign," he maintains.
VeriSign still faces legal action from Sex.com owner Gary Kremen regarding culpability for Sex.com's theft a few years ago by Stephen Cohen, when Cohen stole the domain by way of a forged letter to Network Solutions, as VeriSign was then known.
SiteFinder, created by VeriSign to redirect all misspelled or unknown or unregistered .com and .net addresses to VeriSign's site, was pulled last fall within weeks of its introduction, after ICANN handed VeriSign – which ICANN licenses as the .com and .net administrator – a cease-and-desist and a threat to take legal action, in addition to competitors threatening fair trade complaints.
VeriSign sued earlier this year, accusing ICANN of exceeding its authority and trying to regulate VeriSign improperly, contrary to the charter between the two. VeriSign argued ICANN was trying in effect to become the domain name system's de facto regulator and stifle the introduction of new Net services, according to filings in the case.
