Injunction Remains in Register.com Whois Marketing Case

The registrar wins a round in a 3-year-old case to bar Web hosting company Verio from using its customers' domain name registration information for marketing purposes.

A federal appeals court has upheld a preliminary injunction in a 3-year-old case involving the use of the Internets database of domain name registrants for marketing purposes. Domain name registrar Register.com Inc. on Wednesday announced the decision, handed down last week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. The ruling means that Web hosting company Verio Inc. remains barred from using the Whois database of domain name holders to market services to Register.coms customers. Register.com, of New York, had sued Verio in August 2000, accusing Verio of violating the terms of its Whois database by using its information to mislead Register.com customers with marketing pitches. The U.S. District Court in New York in December 2000 granted the preliminary injunction, and Verio had appealed that decision.
The case now returns to the U.S. District Court in New York, where Register.com is seeking a permanent injunction and an award of damages. "The courts decision vindicates our position and shows that we will not tolerate attempts to co-opt our valuable brand and goodwill," said Peter Forman, president and chief executive officer of Register.com, in a statement. Verio, of Englewood, Colo., said in a statement that it was disappointed with the ruling and is assessing its next options. "The ruling has absolutely no impact our current business practices," the company said. "We essentially ceased all the activities in question more than three years ago and months before the preliminary injunction was entered." The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers requires domain name registrars such as Register.com to provide public access to their Whois records of customer contact information.