Suppose you have purchased the domain name of a very famous company, such as ‘Apple’. Now you can earn big money by selling this domain, right? But is it correct? Something similar happened with a person who had purchased a domain named ‘JioHotstar’. Recently, this person named Dreamer has purchased this domain in view of the possible merger of Reliance JioCinema and Disney Plus Hotstar. He thought that if Reliance and Hotstar come together, he would earn a lot of money by selling this domain. But is it correct?
Is it legal?
Doing this is called ‘Cybersquatting’. That is, trying to earn money by buying a domain of someone else’s name or brand. Cybersquatting is illegal in many countries. if any person domain If someone tries to sell it after buying it, it is cybersquatting.
This means registering a domain name in the name of a famous brand or person to earn money. This is often considered to be done with bad intentions.
America: There is a law in America under which if someone does this, a case can be filed against him.
India: The law for this is not clear in India, but there have been many cases where companies have taken legal action against those doing cybersquatting.
What will be the legal action?
There is no specific law against cybersquatting in India. Nevertheless, Indian courts have been ruling in favor of trademark owners in many cases. Talking about some examples, another person Amit Bhavani told on X (earlier Twitter) that he had received a legal notice from Reliance in 2012.
There’s a trending discussion about the JioHotstar domain purchase, so I thought I’d share my own story.
Reliance sent me a Legal Notice about the domains https://t.co/CLDanrXGit and https://t.co/rntRyO3xvK, which I booked back in 2012. Interestingly, Jio was officially pic.twitter.com/WTrPzDbNDa
— Amit Bhawani
(@amitbhawani) October 24, 2024
He had purchased the domains reliancejio.com and riljio.com, when Jio had not even been launched. Similarly, in 2007, Bharti Airtel had won against a foreign company Marketing Total for the bharatiairtel.com domain.
Bought domain to study in Cambridge
The developer said that if the merger happens, he will be able to study in Cambridge. But the laws against cybersquatting in India are not clear. If Reliance takes legal action regarding this, the developer may face problems.
From this it is clear that greed for such domain names can sometimes create problems. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to legal aspects while purchasing a domain.
