The World of Domain Name Developers, a trade group of internet businesses, in a lawsuit filed Monday in a California federal court, challenged the proposed settlement regarding control of the .com domain, claiming the deal violates U.S. antitrust laws, reports Reuters. The agreement, reached in October, settled a dispute between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign, which was allowed control of the .com domain until 2012.
The group's attorney said the settlement fixes the price of registering any .com or .net far above market rates and also guarantees VeriSign annual price increases at double the inflation rate.
VeriSign makes $6 a year from each of the 35 million registered .com domain names. It also controls the .net domain of some 6 million names.
