Issue 163 - 3rd September 2004

VeriSign's federal case dismissed - case moves to state court

VeriSign Inc, the company that runs the registry database for .com and .net domains, has had its claim against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names (ICANN) dismissed by a federal district court judge. VeriSign had claimed that ICANN breached United States antitrust law when they suspended VeriSign's SiteFinder service last September. The SiteFinder service redirected domain lookups for misspelled or nonexistent names to VeriSign's own site. At the same time, the judge also dismissed six other complaints brought by VeriSign.

VeriSign has now filed a lawsuit against ICANN in the California state court. The case will essentially become a contractual dispute between the two, whereas in the federal court, a loss for ICANN could have meant drastic changes to the way it operates in general. In the state lawsuit, VeriSign is accusing ICANN of violating the terms of the 2001 .com registry agreement between the two organisations by interfering with VeriSign's attempts to start new registry services, including one for back-ordering domain names.

Democrat domain names linked to Republican site

Bush supporter Jed Merrill has registered the domains vermontdemocrats.com, mainedemocrats.com, massachusettsdemocrats.com and rhodeislanddemocrats.com, and linked them to http://www.georgewbush.com/.

However, following media coverage of the story and feedback which Merrill received, a link to John Kerry's website has now also been included. Merrill said that whilst being a committed Bush supporter, his long-term goal was to make information about both candidates more accessible.

Spike Lee wins back domain name

The film director Spike Lee has won his case against Mercedita Kyamko who linked the spikelee.com domain name to a pornographic website. The domain will shortly be transferred to Lee, unless Kyamko legally challenges the ruling. Kyamko did not offer a defence against the lawsuit.

The arbitration was carried out by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Madonna, Celine Dion and Eminem have also won similar cases at the Geneva-based UN agency.