The U.S. District Court in San Francisco ruled OnlineNIC, “unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names that were either identical to or confusingly similar to Verizon trademarks,” according to Verizon.
After representatives from OnlineNIC failed to appear in court to defend themselves, the court came to the conclusion that these names, including VerizonOnline.com and MyVerizonWireless.com, had been registered in bad faith in an attempt “to take advantage of Verizon and Verizon customers,” Verizon said.
Verizon was awarded $50,000 per domain name in damages. The phone company has won similar cases, but Verizon said this marks the largest judgment ever in a cybersquatting case.