CentralNic and .XYZ over .Theatre, .Protection and .Security — Verisign sues
Firm upset that Verisign was dropped as registry services provider in favor of CentralNic.
A few days back I noted a lawsuit Verisign filed in Virginia against .XYZ and Daniel Negari. Thanks to a request by the defendants to remove the case to federal district court, I now have a copy of the lawsuit (sizable PDF).
As it turns out, Verisign originally sued Key Brand Entertainment, applicant for .Theatre, and CentralNic back in March in Circuit Court in Fairfax County. The basis of the lawsuit was that Key Brand Entertainment dropped Verisign as the registry services provider for the domain name and switched to CentralNic. Verisign stated this switch was due to a third party, unknown at the time, acquiring the .theatre domain name.
That party was Daniel Negari’s .XYZ, by now embroiled in a lawsuit with Verisign. .XYZ uses CentralNic as the backend for .xyz.
Once Verisign figured out .XYZ was behind the switch, it amended the lawsuit to name Negari and .XYZ and drop Key Brand. It also added claims for switching the backend provider for Symantec’s .security and .protection, two other domains for which the applicant originally entered into a services agreement with Verisign and .XYZ later purchased. (I don’t think Verisign sued Symantec over the matter. Remember that Verisign sold its security business to Symantec.)
Verisign is suing for tortious interference with a contract and business conspiracy.
A number of fresh top level domain names have different backend providers than originally contemplated, but I’m not aware of any lawsuits being filed over the changes.
