VeriSign Agrees to Cease Mailings to All Registrars

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Go Daddy Software, Inc. achieved its goal today when an Arizona Federal Judge entered a stipulated order prohibiting VeriSign from sending the controversial domain name expiration notices to its customers. By signing the stipulation, VeriSign agrees that it will not only stop sending the solicitations to Go Daddy's customers, but also to the customers of all other registrars.

"Go Daddy is pleased with the order. It puts an immediate end to VeriSign's deceptive mailings and all domain name owners will benefit from the agreement," said Bob Parsons, Go Daddy founder and president. "It is our hope that this order will send a strong message to anyone in this industry contemplating the use of such dubious marketing tactics to clean up their act."

Go Daddy was forced to take this issue to court when VeriSign refused to respond to two formal requests to stop the mailings and comply with the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement. This agreement limits the use of a registrar's customer contact database (Whois) to lawful purposes such as the inquiries necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations.

VeriSign reported to Go Daddy that it stopped mailing the domain expiration notices on May 14, the day a preliminary injunction was entered in Maryland in a similar suit filed by BulkRegister. Despite that, customers of registrars like Go Daddy continued to receive the notices well into June, sparking the Go Daddy lawsuit.

Go Daddy Software, Inc., the world's sixth largest domain-name registrar, became the industry's surprise success story when the privately held company rocketed from #47 to #6 in only 13 months.

About Go Daddy Software

Go Daddy Software, Inc. is a pioneer in developing low-cost, high- performance software. In addition to domain-name registration services, the company also provides Web Hosting, email accounts utilizing Go Daddy(TM) Webmail, an easy-to-use Web site building tool called Website Complete(TM), and online tax preparation software called iTax(TM). For additional information, call Go Daddy Software at 480.505.8862, or visit the company's Web site at http://www.godaddy.com/ .

[Nic]

{ yawn }
Versign is losing it...
its grip on reality and its domain monopoly.

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hehe, plunging into the deep valley

[bigdave]

When one of my domains expired early in June, I got notices from Interland and Register.com in addition to several mailings from Verisign. I recall getting at least two notices from Interland.

It was all a waste of trees, as I went with registerfly for the $9 transfer. All I need with that domain is URL forwarding anyway.

BD