A federal court in California has awarded Verizon Communications Inc. $33.15 million in a "cybersquatting" case.

The Basking Ridge, N.J.-based company said San Francisco-based OnlineNIC used Internet names that were "chosen to be easily confused with legitimate Verizon names."

OnlineNIC "unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names that were either identical to or confusingly similar to Verizon trademarks. The court concluded that Online-NIC's bad-faith registrations of Verizon-related domain names were designed to attract Web users who were seeking to access Verizon's legitimate Web sites and calculated an award based on $50,000 per domain name. Neither OnlineNIC nor counsel representing the company appeared in court in OnlineNIC's defense," Verizon said.

Sarah Deutsch, Verizon's general counsel, said the case "should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers."