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A federal judge Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction against domain name wholesaler VeriSign, temporarily halting the company from publishing advertisements that allegedly attempt to trick domain name holders into switching to its service.

The injunction comes as part of a lawsuit filed against VeriSign by a smaller rival, BulkRegister.com, which charged that VeriSign engaged in unfair marketing practices with advertisements that try to lure customers into renewing their domain names through VeriSign.

In particular, the suit accused VeriSign of sending advertisements to BulkRegister.com customers that appeared as "expiration notices."

The notices listed a deadline to reply of May 15, wrongly implying that customers' domain names would expire on that date, the Baltimore, Maryland, company said in its suit.

Moving Forward

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Maryland District Court Judge Fredric N. Smalkin wrote Tuesday in his order accompanying the preliminary injunction that BulkRegister.com "has shown a sufficient likelihood of success" in its efforts to show that VeriSign's advertisements are "misleading and likely to cause confusion among such registrants."

Representatives from VeriSign, in Mountain View, California, did not respond to inquiries before press time. The case now goes into the discovery stage, and VeriSign has the option to appeal the injunction.

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