Verizon Communications, the telecommunications company, has been awarded $33.2 million in a lawsuit against an Internet services company that it claimed had registered hundreds of domain names with Verizon trademarks.

The default judgment of $50,000 for each of 663 addresses registered by the Internet company, OnlineNic, was issued last Friday by United States District Judge Jeremy D. Fogel in San Jose, Calif. Judge Fogel froze OnlineNic’s assets and ordered the transfer to Verizon of all identical or confusingly similar addresses.

Verizon sued OnlineNic of San Francisco in June, accusing the company of trademark infringement and illegal “cybersquatting,” or registering addresses intentionally to confuse Web users. Such knockoff names often take users to pages that advertise competing products, Verizon said.

You can read the entire article at NY Times.