The lawsuit claims that NSI has a stranglehold over previously registered and expired domain names, and that competition in the domain marketplace has been "injured" by the company's actions. There is no doubt that greater competition would occur if NSI, now a division of VeriSign, would be required to release the names and the accredited registrars could let companies and users register them. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and an injunction requiring NSI to release the expired domain names.

sm In June of 2000, Stan Smith tried to register 28 expired domain names held by NSI. Smith, who buys and sells computer equipment from his home, alleges that NSI refused to delete the specific domain names he requested from the whois database, so that he could be the first person to register them. The whois database is an information repository for all the domain names on the Internet. Smith had tried to register several domain names including kam.com and swa.com--that's Stan's Web Affiliate. The whois database showed they were expired, but he could not gain access to them.

Smith alleges that he called NSI several times, but company officials said they were not releasing the names and did not provide a reason. Earlier, NSI had announced that it was going to auction these and many other names.

Check back here often for the latest updates on this fascinating lawsuit and other interesting aspects of domain name hoarding.