The court of appeals reversed a judgment of the district court and remanded. The court held that a nonprofit composed of participants in the internet domain name system that alleged that a private corporation’s agreement to operate the .com domain name registry contained anticompetitive contract renewal and pricing terms adequately stated a Sherman Act claim.
In 2005, VeriSign, Inc., prevailed in a competitive bidding process for operation of the .com and .net internet domain registry system. VeriSign subsequently contracted with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit that administered the domain name system on behalf of the federal government.
