VeriSign Ordered to Stop Campaign

• By theWHIR.com , May 15, 2002

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May 15, 2002 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Domain name registrar BulkRegister (BulkRegister.com) won a preliminary injunction in its law suit against leading competitor VeriSign (VeriSign.com) during a two-hour hearing Tuesday morning at the United States Federal Court for the District of Maryland.

BulkRegister sued VeriSign in Baltimore on Monday, citing false advertising, tortious interference with contractual relations and tortious interference with economic opportunity, saying VeriSign sent false ?renewal notices? to thousands of BulkRegister customers, intending to trick them into unwittingly transferring their domains to VeriSign.

US District Court Judge Frederic N. Smalkin agreed that VeriSign had likely engaged in deceptive behavior, stating that the renewal notice ?is misleading and likely to cause confusion among registrants,? and ordered the company to immediately stop sending the notices to BulkRegister customers.

BulkRegister says that since March, VeriSign has been sending the ?domain expiration notices,? which implied that the customer?s domain name would expire if they did not return the form along with $29 by the artificial deadline of May 15. Small type on the back of the form would actually authorize VeriSign to take control of the account from the original registrar.

BulkRegister says the fee of $29 is more than double the rate that it charges, and that the transfer of control could result in the loss of DNS services associated with the account.

"The injunction against VeriSign is a definite victory for millions of domain name holders and fellow members of the domain industry," says BulkRegister's CEO Tom Cunningham. "BulkRegister is committed to seeing this matter resolved on behalf of our customers as well as the domain name community at large."

The injunction orders VeriSign to stop distributing expiration notices to domain registrants with BulkRegister, unless they contain a conspicuous statement of the actual expiration date of that domain registration, by noon, May 15th.

Though the injunction applies only to BulkRegister?s customers, the company says it has received calls from other domain registration businesses offering their support.

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