A US Appeals Court rejected charges on Friday that Network Solutions, the company that registers most Internet addresses, had violated antitrust laws by failing to expand the pool of Net locations.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling last year that the Herndon, Virginia, firm did nothing wrong when it refused to add new Internet domains to the existing system that includes .com, .org, and .net.
The three-judge panel agreed that the group of companies and individuals that brought the lawsuit lacked the legal standing to sue Network Solutions under antitrust law, mainly because no member of the group actually competed with the address registrar.
"This lays to rest important questions concerning the services that Network Solutions performs for the Internet," read a statement by Michael A. Daniels, chairman and acting chief executive officer at Network Solutions.
The 1997 lawsuit charged that the National Science Foundation had created an illegal monopoly in Internet registration services, and that Network Solutions had illegally precluded competition. In April 1998, Federal District Court Judge Hogan dismissed 9 of 10 counts in the lawsuit.
One proponent of new Internet top-level domains said that the ruling, by now a moot point, won't have a big impact on the current prospects for domains.
"I think it's pretty clear that Network Solutions hasn't been the reason that there aren't new domains. So I don't see any discrepancy there," said Jay Fenello, owner of Iperdome. Iperdome seeks to establish one new top-level domain, .per, for personal domains, such as www.johnsmith.per.
