In a decision announced today, the National Arbitration Forum found Google, Inc. has legal rights to the domain names googkle.com, ghoogle.com, gfoogle,com, and gooigle.com, which bear a close resemblance to Google’s own google.com. Google registered its domain name in September 1999; the offending domains were registered in late 2000 and early 2001 by Sergey Gridasov of St. Petersburg, Russia, under the business name Computer Services Langenbach Gmbh.
Arbitrator Paul Dorf found the domain names were confusingly similar to Google’s, and that Gridasov had registered the domains in bad faith. Further, Dorf found that Gridasov used the domains to direct visitors to Web sites which attempted to download viruses, trojan horses, and spyware onto visitors’ computers, and that he presumably profited from the confusion with Google’s own domain.
Gridasov failed to answer at the proceedings, so the arbitrator was enabled to accept all reasonable, non-contradictory components Google’s complaint as true. Google filed its complaint May 11, 2005, shortly after warnings regarding googkle.com began to circulate widely on the Internet.
The National Arbitration Forum is one of several dispute resolution organizations which hears thousands of domain name disputes every year as part of ICANN‘s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy as an alternative to civil or trademark lawsuits.
The disputed domains
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