WASHINGTON - Verizon Communications received an early Christmas gift Wednesday, when a federal court awarded the phone giant more than $33 million in what the company called the "largest cybersquatting judgment ever."
Cybersquatting refers to the practice of registering Internet domain names similar to brands or trademarks of well-known companies with the intent to profit. A domain is simply the official address of a website, such as verizon.com or verizonwireless.com.
In Verizon's case, a domain-registration company called Online NIC, based in San Francisco, allegedly registered at least 663 domain names identical to or similar to Verizon trademarks. When customers end up at those sites, they could be fooled into thinking they were visiting an actual Verizon website.
A federal court in the Northern District of California ruled that Online NIC "tried to take advantage of Verizon and Verizon customers by using Internet names chosen to be easily confused with legitimate Verizon names," the phone company said.
The court awarded Verizon $50,000 per domain name.
Verizon said no one from Online NIC appeared in court to defend the company.
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