Should ICANN’s actions be judged under the rule of reason or be deemed per se violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act? Why? Should ICANN’s actions be viewed as a horizontal or a vertical restraint of trade? Why?

Antitrust Law

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a nonprofit entity that organizes Internet
domain names. It is governed by a board of directors elected by various groups with commercial interests in the Inter–
net. One of ICANN’s functions is to authorize an entity to serve as a registry for certain “Top Level Domains” (TLDs).
ICANN and VeriSign entered into an agreement that authorized VeriSign to serve as a registry for the “.com” TLD and
provide registry services in accordance with ICANN’s specifications. VeriSign complained that ICANN was restricting the services that it could make available as a registrar, blocking new services, imposing unnecessary conditions on those
services, and setting the prices at which the services were offered. VeriSign claimed that ICANN’s control of the regis–
try services for domain names violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Using the information presented in the chapter,
answer the following questions.

1. Should ICANN’s actions be judged under the rule of reason or be deemed per se violations of Section 1 of the
Sherman Act? Why?

2. Should ICANN’s actions be viewed as a horizontal or a vertical restraint of trade? Why?

3. Does it matter that ICANN’s directors are chosen by groups with a commercial interest in the Internet? Explain.

4. If the dispute is judged under the rule of reason, what might be ICANN’s defense for having a standardized set of
registry services that must be use