Verizon has been awarded $33.2 million in a lawsuit against Internet services company OnlineNic, who registered hundreds of domain names with Verizon trademarks. According to Verizon, the cybersquatted upon some 663 different Verizon-related addresses, including myverizonwireless.com, iphoneverizonplans.com and verizon-cellular.com. Verizon ultimately wanted some $66.3 million in damages, but will have to settle with half of that -- an award of roughly $50,000 per domain. Of course OnlineNIC didn't appear in court, and goes to great lengths to conceal their real operations -- meaning Verizon will have trouble actually collecting.

Internet overseer ICANN today voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on top level domain names, according to the BBC. The new rules absolutely shatter previous restrictions that kept companies, individuals and countries to only certain domains (.edu, .net, .uk).

Domain Name News notes that thanks to their 2001 acquisition of eNic Corporation (operator of the .CC registry), Verisign acquired a patent that covers systems like their much hated Sitefinder initiative, which redirected users who tried to access unregistered domain names to a parked, ad-laden page. While Verisign might sit on the patent (which was officially awarded on the 4th), they technically might be able to use it to get licensing fees from ISPs who have started using similar systems that turn subscriber typing mistakes into ad revenue.

It's fairly clear that we won't be happy until we've slathered every nook and cranny of the Internet in some kind of advertising. Not only have ISPs started bombarding users via DNS redirection ads, but Slashdot notes that Network Solutions has started putting ads on neglected user subdomains (or a path that does not resolve to a currently active page on your hosted site). From The Register:What, you didn't notice you agreed to this in the 59,000 word Network Solutions user agreement?

GoDaddy this week pulled the plug on a new website that was getting significant media attention for its mission: allowing customers to rate the quality of the police officers in their neighborhood. RateMyCop.com founder Gino Sesto says he was given no warning about the takedown, and when contacted, GoDaddy stated his account was terminated for "suspicious activity." Another rep told him he exceeded his 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, something Sesto denies given he had "80,00 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday".

Last week Swiss bank Julius Baer, unhappy that the Wikileaks website was leaking information about their money laundering, managed to convince a California Judge to force the website offline. The Judge in question had the website's host Dynadot yank their domain and prevent them from getting a new one, raising all kinds of questions about censorship and First Amendment rights.

Last January Network Solutions found themselves under fire for purchasing and holding certain domains for five days after they were searched for at the company's website. The tactic allowed the provider to keep shoppers from doing business elsewhere.

If you recall, back in January Network Solutions found themselves under fire for purchasing and holding certain domains for five days after they're searched for at the company's website. The tactic allowed the provider to keep shoppers from doing business elsewhere.

Recently Network Solutions was widely criticized for taking domains users had searched for at their site, and holding them ransom so they couldn't be registered for five days anywhere else. In contrast, Domain Tools reports that Google will stop putting AdSense ads on domains during their free five-day grace period. The act by Google, focusing largely on protecting Google legally, could put a major crimp in the practice of domain tasting -- at least until tasters find an alternative advertising system.

Network Solutions is under fire this week for domain "front running," or for purchasing and holding certain domains after they're searched for at the company's website, thereby not letting anyone buy the domain at other registrars. For example, should you be in the business of eating aardvarks and try to search for the availability of the domain eataardvark.com at Network Solutions, the website will show you that it's available.

Customers of hosting provider Navisite have been offline since Saturday. The company recently acquired Alabanza, and over the weekend scheduled the migration of much of their equipment.

The last time Verisign pissed off anyone on an epic scale was when they tried to break the Internet in order to profit from mistyped domain URLs (Sitefinder). Now they're back with a new money-making plan -- selling access to selected root dns server lookup data to registrars, according to Domain Name News.The complaint, of course, being that this just gives people a better understanding of what bogus domains to register in order to grab wayward traffic or set up scam sites (via Slashdot).

ICANN has used the "nuclear option," terminating Registerfly's license to sell domain names (see this thread in our forums). RegisterFly managed the domains for websites belonging to Michael Jackson, the Easter Seals Society and the government of Thailand -- but the company fell into complete dysfunction after the CEO and VP had a bitter falling out. The company faced all manner of internal financial issues, and tens of thousands of customers lost control of their domain names. ICANN says they were "frustrated and distressed by recent management confusion inside RegisterFly." Registerflea.com has been set up to track the carnage, and the site notes there have recently been site defacements.