In one of those cases that makes you despair of our legal system ever understanding the Internet, a reader writes that he just received notice of a settlement of a class action lawsuit involving Register.com:
"This class action suit is stupid. The lead plaintiff is upset that Register.com put up a placeholder page when he registered a domain name. He says this was misleading and somehow fraud and theft. Register.com says it was in the license agreement and it is standard industry practice.”
“Even though I can be a plaintiff, I come down with Register.com on this one. Register.com couldn't get it thrown out of court, so they have settled with the guy. According to this document everyone in the class gets a $5 coupon to use with Register.com. The lead plaintiff gets $12,500. The lawyers for the lead plaintiff can get $642,500!”
“I can understand why Register.com settled. They must have calculated their costs in defending the suit and the chance they might lose something somehow. Settling was a business decision on their part. And I recognize that Register.com are not always the nicest guys in the world to do business with. BUT, when companies have to deal with stupid garbage like this, I can see how they end up arming themselves with lots of equally stupid legal armor to fend it off.”
From looking over the notice of the settlement, I think the reader is wise in deciding not to participate in the settlement. No matter how badly the policy may have been described in Register.com’s service agreement at the time, complaining about them posting a “Coming Soon” page is definitely in the “I Didn’t Know the Coffee Would be Hot” category. Worse, in fact, because it’s hard to see how any harm was done the plaintiff by the Coming Soon page being there until he was ready to put up something of his own.
But beyond the sheer insipidness of the case, I think there’s another reason not to take part in the settlement. Strangely, those who qualify by having registered a domain with Register.com between Jan 30, 1998 through March 6, 2001 must opt-out to not be considered part of the class. If you don’t take steps to exclude yourself from the settlement, you get your $5 certificate and you also automatically agree to a release for Register.com that specifically reaffirms you “remain bound by the terms of Register.com’s Services Agreement, as it is amended from time to time.”
In other words, while you get a $5 certificate (good apparently only if you’re still using Register.com for registrations or renewals) to “punish” the company for doing something that wasn’t really wrong, you agree to a classic sneakwrap provision that lets the company off for possible future wrongs as long as they alter their terms to cover it. I don’t think that’s a good bargain, particularly as Register.com is indeed not always the nicest company to do business with. I hope many who qualify for the settlement do opt out, both to keep Register.com on its toes and to send the message to the courts that this settlement is a waste of time and money.
12:07:52 PM 
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