Cybersquatting : In News
A Delhi based developer registered the domain, ‘JioHotstar,’ which ignited a debate on cybersquatting.
- Cybersquatting is an act of registering or using a domain name to profit from a trademark, corporate or personal name of an individual.
- Usually, cybersquatting is seen as a form of extortion or even as an attempt to take over business from its rival.
- Types of Cybersquatting
- Typo squatting: These domains are bought with typological errors in the names of well-known brands. Examples of such misspelled domains are yajoo.com, facebok.com etc. The intention behind this act is to divert the target audience whenever they misspell a domain name.
- Identity theft: In cases pertaining to identity theft, the website of an already existing brand is copied with the intention of confusing the target consumer.
- Name jacking: It involves impersonating a well-known name/ celebrity in cyberspace. Instances of name jacking would include creating fake websites/ social media accounts with a celebrity’s name.
- Reverse cybersquatting: It means an event whereby a person/s falsely claims a trademark as their own and falsely accuses the domain owner of cybersquatting. In essence, this act is the opposite of cybersquatting.
- In India, there are no specific laws that condemn, prohibit or penalize the act of cybersquatting.
- However, domain names are considered as trademarks under the Trademark Act, 1999.
- Hence, any person who starts using an identical/similar domain name will be held liable for trademark infringement as described under Section 29 of the Trademark Act, 1999.
