VeriSign dealt another legal blow in ICANN suit

VeriSign Thursday lost another round in its battle against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers when a U.S. federal judge dismissed the company's anti-trust claims, filed in an amended complaint.

The decision, made in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is the second setback for VeriSign in its attempt to prove that ICANN has overstepped its bounds as the Internet's technical coordinating body. In May, the same court dismissed VeriSign's original anti-trust complaint.

VeriSign, which manages the .com and .net domain names, filed its initial suit against ICANN in February, claiming the group had acted outside its charter by delaying the introduction of new VeriSign services, such as the company's Site Finder service which redirects requests for nonexistent Web addresses. In addition to accusing ICANN of being a de facto regulator of the domain name system, the Mountain View, Calif., company also alleged breach of contract, seeking unspecified damages.

After the original anti-trust claims were dismissed, VeriSign filed an amended complaint in June alleging, among other claims, that ICANN's processes were being controlled by the VeriSign's competitors.

Following a hearing on Monday, federal Judge A. Howard Matz dismissed the anti-trust claims in the amended complaint. However, VeriSign can still refile its breach of contract claims against ICANN in state court.

VeriSign representatives were not immediately available to comment early Friday on the company's plans for future legal action.

ICANN, in Marina del Rey, Calif., lauded the court decision Thursday, saying in a written statement that the ruling affirmed ICANN's structure and showed that it was not subject to capture by any commercial interest.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.