Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Verisign and the Federal Trade Commission have reached a settlement stemming from charges that Verisign’s Network Solutions unit, the largest domain name registrar, tricked customers of competing domain name registrars into renewing and transferring their domain name with Network Solutions.The FTC action grew out of series of private class actions first filed in California state court on May 28, 2002. Luxenberg v. Verisign, Inc. et al, No. BC274342 (Cal. Jan. 8, 2003). Both the class actions and the FTC charges relate to notices Verisign sent to customers who had registered a domain name with other domain name registrars. In the notice, Verisign misled registrants by stating their registration was nearing expiration and provided paperwork for renewal at a fee. In some instances, registrants were years away from their expiration date. Registrants were also unaware that their domain name would be transferred from their current domain name registrar to Verisign’s Network Solutions.