The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a nonprofit entity that organizes Internet domain names. It is governed by a board of directors elected by various groups with commercial interests in the Internet. One of ICANN’s functions is to authorize an entity to serve as a registrar for certain “top level domains” (TLDs). ICANN entered into an agreement with VeriSign to provide registry services for the “.com” TLD in accordance with ICANN’s specifications. VeriSign complained that ICANN was restricting the services that it could make available as a registrar and was blocking new services, imposing unnecessary conditions on those services, and setting prices at which the services were offered. VeriSign claimed that ICANN’s control of the registry services for domain names violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Using the information presented in the chapter, answer the following questions.
Should ICANN’s actions be judged under the rule of reason or be deemed a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act?
Should ICANN’s action be viewed as a horizontal or a vertical restraint of trade?
Does it matter that ICANN’s directors are chosen by groups with a commercial interest in the Internet?
If the dispute is judged under the rule of reason, what might be ICANN’s defense for having a standardized set of registry
services that must be used?