[governance] Appeals Court Revives the CFIT Anti-Trust Suit

carlos a. afonso ca at rits.org.br
Mon Jun 8 06:48:42 EDT 2009 

Yes, curious reaction, I do not understand as well what really motivated
McTim to do it. I think this is an open space and we can of course post
anything anyone of us feel relevant to the others as piece of
information, news etc.

--c.a.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Michael Gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com>
To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, "'McTim'" <dogwallah at gmail.com>,
"'Pranesh Prakash'" <pranesh at cis-india.org>
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:47:35 -0700
Subject: RE: [governance] Appeals Court Revives the CFIT Anti-Trust Suit

> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure that I agree... For those of us without a professional
> interest
> in the subject matter here (and other things to be doing) the
> occasional
> background piece or reference or URL for providing context can be
> extremely
> valuable--the piece that Pranesh sent along certainly would, to my
> mind, fit
> within that category. 
> 
> Especially in light of current/recent discussons.
> 
> MBG
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 1:25 PM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Pranesh Prakash
> Subject: Re: [governance] Appeals Court Revives the CFIT Anti-Trust
> Suit 
> 
> 
> All,
> 
> If I want to read CircleID or IGP blogs I do that on my own.
> 
> Please don't just regurgitate, it's bad form, really.
> 
> If you feel you must, then at the very least,
> make some editorial comment about what you insist on posting.
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> 
> McTim
> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
> route
> indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
> 
> 
> On 6/6/09, Pranesh Prakash <pranesh at cis-india.org> wrote:
> > From:  
> >
> <http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20090605_appeals_court_revives_c
> f
> > it_anti_trust_suit_against_verisign/>
> >
> >  Appeals Court Revives the CFIT Anti-Trust Suit Against VeriSign 
> Jun 
> > 05, 2009 4:19 PM PDT
> >
> >  By John Levine
> >
> >  Back in 2005 an organization called the Coalition for Internet  
> > Transparency (CFIT) burst upon the scene at the Vancouver ICANN 
> > meeting,  and filed an anti-trust suit against VeriSign for their 
> > monopoly control  of the .COM registry and of the market in
> expiring 
> > .COM domains. They  didn't do very well in the trial court, which 
> > granted Verisign's motion  to dismiss the case. But yesterday the 
> > Ninth Circuit reversed the trial  court and put the suit back on 
> > track.
> >
> >  In the decision [PDF], a three judge panel told the district court
> > that  the suit has enough basis to proceed. CFIT claims that
> VeriSign 
> > engaged  in a variety of predatory conduct including financial 
> > pressure,  astroturf lobbying, and vexatious lawsuits to get ICANN
> to 
> > renew  the .COM agreement on very favorable terms, including what
> is 
> > in  practice eternal renewal of the contract with annual price 
> > increases. As  part of that process, VeriSign settled the suit,
> paid 
> > ICANN several  million dollars, and promised never to lobby against
> > ICANN again.
> >
> >  In the 20 page decision, the appeals court basically said that
> CFIT's  
> > claims about the .COM renewal, the domain market, and the expiring 
> > domain market were plausible, crediting a brief from the Internet  
> > Commerce Association for explaining the expiring domain market to 
> > them.  They note that an earlier case from 2001 that didn't find a 
> > separate  market in expiring domains appears no longer relevant,
> since 
> > the domain  market has evolved a lot since then.
> >
> >  CFIT made similar claims about the .NET market, which the appeals 
> > court  found less persuasive, so they instructed the trial court to
> > look at  them again and decide whether they should be dismissed or 
> > continue. But  the case with respect to .COM definitely is going 
> > ahead.
> >
> >  This suit could have a huge effect on the domain market, since
> there  
> > were credible bidders who said they could run the .COM registry for
> $3  
> > per name, under half of what VeriSign charges. It is also a huge  
> > embarassment for ICANN, since it shows them to be inept, corrupt,
> or  
> > both when managing the .COM domain which, due to its dominance, is
> the  
> > most important thing they do. In the original version of the suit 
> > ICANN  was a defendant, but they were dropped a few years ago so
> now 
> > they're  just an uncomfortable observer.
> >
> >  Perversely, if CFIT gets its way, ICANN could come out ahead. They
> > get a  fixed 20 cents per domain, unrelated to the $6.42 that
> VeriSign  
> > currently charges. If the price were to drop to $3, ICANN would
> still  
> > get their 20 cents, and presumably if the price were a lot lower,  
> > there'd be a lot more registrations.
> >
> >  CFIT's attorney is Bret Fausett, who's been an active ICANN
> observer  
> > just about since the beginning, and gets great credit for this  
> > surprising reversal. CFIT themselves, despite their name, is about
> as  
> > opaque an organization as there is, having a broken web site and no
>  
> > other public presence I can find. A 2005 article in The Register by
>  
> > Kieren McCarthy (back when he was a journalist) claims it's funded
> by  
> > Rob Hall, founder of momentous.ca/pool.com, a large registrar that 
> > does  a lot of business with domain speculators and provides a
> popular 
> > domain  sniping service to grab expiring domains. Although I am not
> a 
> > great fan  of the speculators, I'm no fan of VeriSign either, and I
> > look forward to  the progress of this suit, not the least for the 
> > interesting documents  that are likely to appear in the discovery 
> > stage.
> >
> >
> >  --
> >  Pranesh Prakash
> >  Programme Manager
> >  Centre for Internet and Society
> >  W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283
> >
> >
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