As reported on news site TheRegister.co.uk, Strato and Network
Solutions (NSI) used to be partners, with Strato registering its
.com, .net and .org domains through NSI. That agreement ended in
January and Strato now wishes to transfer these domains to another
German company called Cronon.
But according to Strato, NSI has approached Strato clients, "for
the purpose of alienating and enticing them in an unlawful manner
in order to force them to change to NSI." Strato took legal action,
and a German district court granted an injunction against the US
registrar.
On 19th January Strato announced that it had asked the FTC to
intervene in the dispute. The German Federal Department of Trade
and Industry has also been requested to represent German clients at
the FTC.
According to Rochus Wegener, board member of Strato, "NSI is
employing dubious means to take the clients of the Strato
Corporation as "Domain Hostages" in order to extort expensive and
unnecessary contractual agreements. We will fight against this with
all legal, operational and technical means".
