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VeriSign has filed an amended complaint in its lawsuit against the Internets main domain-name oversight body.
The Mountain View, Calif., company on Monday refiled the suit after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers won an early round in the case during a May hearing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
A federal judge during that hearing dismissed the cases main antitrust claim but left VeriSign Inc. with the opportunity to amend its lawsuit. VeriSign is challenging ICANNs authority, accusing the Marina del Rey, Calif., nonprofit of overstepping its bounds as a technical body to become a regulator of the Internet.
The judge now must decide whether to reinstate the claim, which was one of six ICANN had asked to be dismissed. If the claim is not reinstated, VeriSign could be forced to move the lawsuit to state court since the other claims are largely issues of state law, legal experts have said.
“VeriSign filed an amended complaint at the judges request to provide additional details on the antitrust claims,” company spokesman Tom Galvin said. “For VeriSign, the intent of the suit remains the same as when we initially filed it in February—to get clarity around ICANNs role and the process for the introduction of new services.”
ICANN officials could not be immediately reached to comment on the latest filing, but the nonprofit said in previous statements that it is “disappointed that VeriSign has again chosen confrontation over consensus” by filing a lawsuit.
The legal clash stems from VeriSigns desire to introduce a range of new services as the registry of the .com and .net domains. In particular, the company butted heads with ICANN last year when it launched SiteFinder, an attempt to redirect users who misspelled Web domain names to its own search site. VeriSign suspended the service following demands from ICANN to shutter it.
In its lawsuit, VeriSign is seeking a temporary and permanent injunction to prevent ICANN from interfering with any reintroduction of SiteFinder or the launch of other services.
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