The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the marketing practices of VeriSign Inc., which registers Internet addresses, the company said today.

In recent months, the company has been hit with a spate of lawsuits accusing it of deceptive marketing practices related to its efforts to persuade rivals' customers to shift suppliers of Internet addresses, also called domain names.
A crucial issue is whether VeriSign obtained the information on the outside customers illicitly.

"One of the key things in connection with VeriSign's mass-marketing activities, and similar actions by other companies, is how did they get the data?" said Michael Palage, chair of the Icann Registrar Constituency, an industry association.

VeriSign — which is the Internet's dominant provider of registration services for the so-called top-level domains of .com, .net and .org — said it was cooperating with the inquiry.

"We've been asked by the F.T.C. not to comment on their request for information regarding our marketing activities in the domain name business," a VeriSign spokesman said. "VeriSign has always taken its responsibilities under the law seriously and will of course cooperate fully with the F.T.C."

Full Article: NYTimes /Tech