telecom giant

Verizon to cybersquatters: Can you hear me now? Verizon Communications sent a clear message this week after the telecom giant won a lawsuit against OnlineNIC, a San Francisco-based domain-registration company.

OnlineNIC, which has more than 1.18 million domains registered, had more than 663 domain names identical or similar to Verizon trademarks, the company said.

A judge in the Northern District of California found that OnlineNIC tried to take advantage of Verizon by tricking its customers into going to OnlineNIC domains and misrepresenting them as Verizon Web sites.

The National Security Agency, other governmental agencies, and President George W. Bush are named in a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The action by EFF, a nonprofit with offices in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, also accuses Vice President Dick Cheney; David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff; Alberto Gonzales, former White House counsel and attorney general; and John McConnell, director of national intelligence, of participation in domestic surveillance.