An Australian domain name registration company has agreed to pay $250,000 into a compensation trust fund following action from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The company, Internic Software, part of Internic Technology, is a domain name broker. The company was alleged to have misled consumers by using an almost identical domain name to a US company, InterNIC. InterNIC is operated by Network Solutions, an exclusive registrar of second level domain names in agreement with the US government.
The action, in conjunction with the US Federal Trade Commission, claimed Internic Software, at www.internic.com, had behaved in a misleading and deceptive way. The ACCC alleged that customers looking for InterNIC at www.internic.net and entering internic in their browser would end up at the site operated by Internic Software where the respondents acted as a broker in the sale of domain name registration services.
The ACCCalso claimed that the use of the name internic.com is likely to create the false impression that Internic Software is affiliated with InterNIC in the US and that consumers may have used Internic Software's services believing they were using InterNIC in the US.
Internic had registered about 13,000 domain names from customers around the world and in some circumstances had charged three times what customers would have paid if they'd gone direct to InterNIC.
Internic Software director Mr Peter Zmijewski, gave undertakings to the Federal Court to no longer use the name Internic or any similar name and to put $250,000 into an Australian trust fund to refund consumers misled by the conduct. The undertaking ends the legal action. The trust fund will be used to refund those customers who were misled by the conduct. Cusomters will be contacted about procedures for claiming a refund.
The matter was raised with the ACCC by the US Federal Trade Commission which had received complaints from the United States. According to the ACCC, complaints were also received by them from unhappy consumers in Australia.
Internic Software posted a disclaimer on its Web site in April emphasising that its not part of InterNIC.
