Google Wins Big in Domains Dispute

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Google Wins Big in Domains Dispute

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has just won a big battle to recover a whooping 763 domain names, in a dispute that it had filed against domain infringement.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has recently won a victory over what it had dubbed as the largest infringement it has ever encountered. Someone had registered a number of domains over its trademark GOOGLE mark, and was planning to use them over the xxx top domain. The user who is based in Hong Kong had taken domain names such as Goolgle.com, Go0gle.com, Gougle.com, googemail.com, googer.com, googlae.com, googlecalander.com, googlede.com googlepictures.com googlevodafone.com, googlespiderman.com, and googleclooney.com among others.

It is assumed that the person who had infringed on the domain names was planning to use the domains to host pornography or adult content.

A complaint had been filed at the National Arbitration Forum by the internet search giant, in the same period that it also won a couple of YouTube typo domains. The arbitration forum decided to transfer all the domain names to Google, due to the glaring infringement and also because the owner of the registered domains was not present at the hearings despite attempts to reach him/her.

The argument that had been put forward by Google was that the infringed domain names were taken up in bad faith. This is because they would have been used in various ways except work for Google; therefore, the only recourse would have been to get them back.

The decision by the forum was based on the ICANN rules and determined that the domains had been registered and were being used in bad faith; the respondent in the dispute has no claim that is legitimate over the claim, and that the domain that had been registered by the respondent was similar and was confusing when compared to the trademark that Google holds.

However, an interesting note is that Google is not willing to allow all these domains to be owned and used by any other person, but keen observers are looking to see if Google will drop the names, or spend large sums of money renewing them year after year.

Google it seems will continue to put out these small fires since it seems that it will continue to fight domain name infringement for the foreseeable future, due to its popularity, and the potential that its domain holds, or anything that sounds close to it.

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