Keeping to its promise, domain name registrar PG Media Inc, which trades under the name Name.Space, has appealed the judge’s ruling against it in its antitrust trial against Network Solutions Inc and the National Science Foundation. Judge Robert Patterson ruled on March 18 that NSI could not be sued for antitrust violations because it was performing its work on behalf of, and under contract from a federal government agency – the NSF.
PG Media’s lawyer, Glenn Manishin of Washington, DC-based Blumenfeld & Cohen, said at the time the company would appeal as the judge did not understand the issues involved and was unwilling to broach the subject of who actually controls access to the root. NSI and the NSF deny all the allegations. PG Media sued NSI in 1997 when it refused to add around 300 new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the internet’s root server network. PG Media sued, alleging denial of access to essential facilities and also for infringing its First Amendment rights. The judge’s ruling said that domain names are akin to telephone numbers and are not free speech.
