Verizon recently won a cybersquatting lawsuit against OnlineNIC, a San Francisco domain-registration company. OnlineNIC, which has more than 1.1 million domains registered, had more than 663 domain names identical or similar to Verizon trademarks.

The judge found that OnlineNIC tried to capitalize on Verizon by tricking its customers into OnlineNIC domains and manipulating them as Verizon Web sites. The OnlineNIC sites in question included: myverizonwireless.com, iphoneverizonplans.com, and 123verizonphones.com. As a result, OnlineNIC must pay $50,000 per domain name, amounting to $33.15 million, which is Verizon’s largest judgment ever in a cybersquatting case.

Verizon had won numerous similar cybersquatting cases against 3 different companies for violating Verizon’s trademarks. Additionlly, Verizon is one of the main organizers behind the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), a group formed in 2007 to take action against cybersquatting.

Other companies that are part of CADNA with Yahoo, Eli Lilly, Dell, Marriott International, and others.According to CADNA. Cybersquatting increased more than 200 percent in 2007, when compared to 2006. CADNA also stated the total effect of cybersquatting on a one brand, could be in the tens of millions when factors such as lost leads and sales, poor customer experiences, and millions of lost unique visitors are added up.