May, 2002 : BulkRegister Expects Lengthy Proceedings

📅 May 16, 2002 - Tom D?Alleva, vice president of marketing for domain registrar BulkRegister (BulkRegister.com 👉 Total Reviews: 2
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BulkRegister sued its leading competitor in Baltimore on Monday, claiming VeriSign sent deceptive emails to BulkRegister customers in an effort to encourage the transfer of their domains.
A US District Court Judge agreed on Tuesday, issuing a preliminary injunction against VeriSign, ordering the company to stop sending the misleading emails to BulkRegister customers.
D?Alleva says other domain registration companies have seen similar ?renewal notices? sent to their customers, and he has received encouragement from those companies. Register.com's attorney attended Tuesday's hearing. However, the injunction against VeriSign refers specifically to its communication with BulkRegister customers.
?We helped draft the injunction,? says D?Alleva, ?and they wanted us to make it more inclusive. But I don?t think the judge would have upheld it.?
Following the preliminary injunction, says D?Alleva, it could be a long while before the case comes to a conclusion. ?I?d love for it to be over with,? he says, ?but it's going to take time. If you asked me how long I thought it would take, I?d say a year.?
As part of the law suit, BulkRegister is seeking financial compensation for its losses, and the return of its customers. ?What we're going through now,? says D?Alleva, ?is investigating what damage was done. We got emails from some of our major resellers saying they lost incredible amounts of customers, but they didn't quantify that. So what we're doing now is gathering some hard evidence, which is part of the process."
Though financial compensation is part of the suit, D?Alleva says the legal battle is not about money. "I don't think there's a lot of money in this for BulkRegister. I think what we're looking for is for people to be forthright in their advertising."
With the domain name business already known for such unsavory practices as cybersquatting, typo squatting and even domain hijacking, the business already has to battle a bad name. The use of deceptive practices by the biggest registrar in the world would only make things worse for the industry.
D?Alleva says he simply want's VeriSign to live up to its slogan, ?The Value of Trust.?
?I was not in support of a law suit unless our motives were correct,? he says. ?We wanted to make it stop, and make it right.?