Google Wins Typosquatting Ruling

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

12 July 2005

The National Arbitration Forum announced on Friday that it has issued a ruling in favor of Google regarding rights to the Internet domain names googkle.com, ghoogle.com, gfoogle.com and gooigle.com.

The internet search portal filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on May 11, asserting legal rights to the Web addresses bearing close resemblance to Google.com.

Ruling in Google’s favor, National Arbitration Forum arbitrator Paul A. Dorf found that the other party, Sergey Gridasov, registered the googkle.com and ghoogle.com on December 30, 2000 and the domain names gfoogle.com and gooigle.com on January 12, 2001 — after Google registered its domain in late 1999.

Gridasov was also using the disputed domain names to direct Internet users to Web sites that attempt to download viruses, trojan horses and spyware to the users’ computers. The disputed domain names contain links to various products unrelated to Google.

The arbitrator found that Gridasov did not have legitimate rights to the Web addresses, and the Web addresses were confusingly similar to Google’s trademark rights to its own name. The arbitrator also found that Gridasov was using them in bad faith by presumably profiting from the use of domains.

Internet domain disputes similar to that of Google’s are a few of thousands heard each year by the National Arbitration Forum under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

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