RE: [registrars] Wired News : NetSol Hit With $1.7 Bil Suit

[Josh Elliott <jelliott@tucows.com>]

I think this is just another case in a series of lawsuits against NSI's
monopoly prior to 1999.  It is just more money that they have to spend in
court, but I doubt anything will come of it - all the suits thus far dealing
with this same issue have been thrown out of court.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-registrars@dnso.org [mailto:owner-registrars@dnso.org]On
> Behalf Of Greg Schuckman
> Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 11:26 AM
> To: registrar constituency
> Cc: gschuckman@register.com
> Subject: [registrars] Wired News : NetSol Hit With $1.7 Bil Suit
>
>
>
> A note from Greg Schuckman:
>
>    Interesting turn of events.  What do you all make of this?
> Could we be facing the potential for becoming a regulated
> industry beyond ICANN accredidation?
>
> ============================================================
>
>  From Wired News, available online at:
> http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,34959,00.html
>
> NetSol Hit With $1.7 Bil Suit
> by Lynn Burke
>
> 12:25 p.m. 14.Mar.2000 PST
> Internet address registrar Network Solutions was slammed with a $1.7
> billion lawsuit Tuesday alleging the company's practice of charging
> fees for Internet domain names violates federal law.
>
> The proposed class-action suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San
> Francisco, seeks over $800 million in domain-name registration fee
> refunds and another $900 million in antitrust damages.
>
> Everybody's got issues in Politics
> There's no biz like E-Biz
>
> The eight named plaintiffs claim the 1995 agreement between NSI and
> the National Science Foundation violates the Constitution by
> permitting NSI to collect a $70 fee for every Internet domain name
> registration, plus $35 in yearly renewal fees.
>
> "Under what basis are they charging that? That's just absolutely
> outrageous," plaintiffs' attorney William Bode said.
>
> Bode said the new suit is broader in scope than the class-action suit
> against NSI and NSF that was dismissed last year, which challenged the
> constitutionality of the registration fee charged by NSI.
>
> Tuesday's suit is going after NSI for its perceived failure to observe
> the Internet protocols that restrict top-level domains ".com," ".net"
> and ".org" to, respectively, commercial companies, ISPs, and
> nonprofits.
>
> Officials at Network Solutions were not immediately available for
> comment Tuesday morning.
>
> Bode said NSI's failure to effectively regulate proper use of the
> domain extensions indicates a breach of its contract with the
> government. What's more, he said, NSI actually encourages companies to
> register for all three extensions to protect themselves from
> cybersquatters.
>
> "Requiring a company to register for three fees, with no added
> economic value, is a patent abuse of monopoly power," Bode said.
>
> He said he's not worried that the District of Columbia Circuit Court
> of Appeals already has ruled that the Internet domain name registry is
> not a "quintessential government service."
>
> "The Internet is a public facility and the fees in question are
> clearly unconstitutional," Bode said.
>
> Howard Sartori, president of the American Internet Registrants
> Association, endorsed the suit.
>
> "The government may give NSI a monopoly over Internet domain name
> registration, but it cannot vest it with monopoly profits at the
> expense of the Internet community," he said in a statement.
>
> Virginia-based Network Solutions is the world’s largest Internet
> registrar, with more than 8.1 million registrations.
>
> Related Wired Links:
>
> ICANN Meetings in De Nile
> 7.Mar.2000
>
> Bulk Confusion at BulkRegister
> 19.Jan.2000
>
> Domain Registrations Extended
> 18.Jan.2000
>
> Own the Amazon Domain -- Not!
> 14.Jan.2000
>
> Strike One Against Cybersquatting
> 5.Jan.2000
>
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>
>