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Comment by numakerg | Hacker News Reader

>If Verisign were to charge him $10 million per year to renew the tucows.com domain name despite "the bile that would rise" in his stomach he would likely pay that renewal fee because it is only through Verisign that he can obtain the tucows.com domain name and because the domain name is that vital to his business.

Would it be in the company's interest to sue ICANN at that point?

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Sue them on what grounds?

I wonder if trademark law would kick in at that point.

I suspect it would not. Not until they handed the domain to someone else, that is. You might be able to force them to not give it to anyone else, maybe, but I'd be susprised if you could force them to give it to you.

You can force other people who have domains you want to turn them over to you in a trademark suit. Forcing a registrar to do it isn't quite the same thing -- the registrar isn't parallel to you, it's one level up -- but it's not quite different either.

The actual domain itself cannot act as trademark, so I suspect it would not.

I suppose if they do such a thing they'll have to charge each customer differently, which might lead to some kind of discrimination lawsuit?

But that's literally the situation we have right now: commercial entities are discriminated against by having to pay more for their .com than nonprofits and individuals interested in obtaining a .org

Make not mistake: I hate ICANN so much right now for their idiotic "we need to let the marker regulate the prices" for a product in which there IS no marketplace (you can't buy the same thing from someone else for less, domains are unique) but if the grounds are to be discrimination, that's the situation we currently have, and this decision by ICANN would be the result of a lawsuit brought against them on those grounds.

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