Pornography Brands Sue ICANN Over .XXX, Say ICM Registry Contract Anticompetitive

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and ICM Registry—which operates the newly created .XXX top-level domain name registry—engaged in anticompetitive practices in the process of negotiating and implementing the registry contract, a pair of adult entertainment businesses alleged in a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California Nov. 16 (Manwin Licensing International S.A.R.L. v. ICM Registry LLC).

The case has many parallels to antitrust litigation against Verisign Inc. involving the .com registry agreement—litigation that was reinstated by the Ninth Circuit after dismissal in district court before the parties settled the ...