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Second Lawsuit Filed Against ICANN (and VeriSign)
penciling_in writes "CircleID reports on a second lawsuit filed against ICANN and VeriSign. 'Newman & Newman, the law firm representing an ad hoc coalition of ICANN-accredited domain name registrars, has filed a lawsuit today against ICANN and VeriSign to Stop 'Anti-Consumer, Anti-Competitive' Wait List Service Implementation.' According to the report, "The complaint attacks ICANN and VeriSign based on 1) Unfair Trade Practices Act Violations; 2) Violation of California Business & Professions Code; 3) Unlawful Tying Arrangement; 4) Attempted Monopolization; 5) Violation of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act; 6) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage; 7) Breach of Contract; and 8) Declaratory Relief." Also a related website launched at fightwls.com."
WLS can work on domains that are owned by businesses that that DO NOT have a registered trademark.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
As long as the person understands that they have about as much chance of registering microsoft.com as they do of winning the lottery, I see no reason why we should be holding consumers' hands and protecting them from their own stupidity.
But if Microsoft buys insurance from Verisign, then there is NO chance at all that the person who paid for WLS on Microsoft.com will ever get the domain. Thus, at best it is fraudulent for Verisign to offer WLS and insurance, and at worse, it is a racketeering operation with Verisign putting the squeeze on their own customers ("Buy insurance, Microsoft, look how many people are on the WLS for your domain. You wouldn't want to lose your domain to one of these people, would you?").
Edith Keeler Must Die
The services exist for differet domains. MS can buy insurance becasue if there was no insurance and they let the domain reg. lapse, there is a good chance someone else would reguister the domain making a big nuiscence for ms. TWLS is for a domain that you think wil lapse soon, but don't want to have to be the first person to try and reg it before some bot that autoregisters names to resell gets it. Both make it more convinent for the consumers.
No, the WLS people are worse. Their business model is lurking for domains to expire, registering them instantaneously upon expiration, then ransoming them back to the original owner for as much as they can manage. One valuable domain can easily reap a million dollars this way, so their clients buy domain names like lottery tickets.
Of course, unlike real lotteries, they never publish the odds of winning and never have to reveal if they failed to get it first or didn't even bother to actually try to register the domains. They just collect the fees.
Can you say "spammer-type business planning" and "fraud too small to prosecute", thus only stoppable by a policy change? I get a dozen spams for this crap every week: their business is definitely illegitimate.
It would be logical to not let anyone buy WLS if the domain name is insured.
Frankly I'm for the FCC canning ICANN and VeriSign and taking over the management of internet domain name registration/assignment. It is ridicules to have these two organizations work in sync to protect their monopoly.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
the whole WLS thing should be illegal IMHO, that's like someone setting up a waiting list on your house, and pressuring you to pay extra money to keep your property though you've already paid for it and paid it off.