Court upholds pro-Verizon ruling in 'largest cybersquatting case ever'

A federal court in the Northern District of California has upheld the December 2008 ruling which awarded Verizon $33.15 million in a cybersquatting case against domain registry company OnlineNIC.

The 2008 ruling gave Verizon $50,000 for each of the 663 domain names OnlineNIC registered that were "confusingly similar" or in some cases identical to Verizon trademarks with the intention of attracting users who were looking to access legitimate Verizon sites.

Names such as verizononline.com, verizonphoneservices.com, verizonwirlelss.com, and verizioncareers.com were repeatedly "kited," or registered and un-registered during the ICANN five-day cancellation period where the registrar doesn't have to pay.

The court determined OnlineNIC to be a serial cybersquatter, and Verizon found 14,700 domain names that infringed on 26 Verizon trademarks.

In a statement this morning, Sarah Deutsch, Verizon vice president and associate general counsel said, "We hope the court's decision goes a long way toward protecting consumers from becoming targets of Internet abuses and frauds. Verizon is determined to protect our brand and consumers from cybersquatters whose businesses are based on misleading consumers."