TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2020 (6) TMI 818
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.... domains such as .com, .net, etc. Defendants Nos. 2 and 3 are partners of Endurance Domains. The 4th Defendant is said to be an erstwhile partner. 4. Defendants Nos. 6 to 11 and 13 are all banks. 5. The 5th Defendant is described as Ashok Kumar, an unknown Defendant. 6. Defendant No. 15 is the .in Registry, a Government registry of domains registered with the .in domain name. 7. There are two other domain name registrars joined to the IA and whose addition I have separately allowed in an application for amendment. These are GoDaddy LLC, now Defendant No. 16 (Respondent No. 1 to this IA) and Porkbun LLC, Defendant No. 20 (Respondent No. 5 to this IA). I will refer to the parties by their names or abbreviations. 8. It is not necessary at this stage to set out at any great length what it is the Plaintiff complained of. Hindustan Unilever Limited, or HUL, the Plaintiff, is one of India's largest companies. It has registration of a number of valuable trade marks covering a range of products. In the Plaint and in a previous application it has been pointed out that its name is also part of its official corporate online identity. Principally, the Plaintiff has the domain....
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....of domain names and translate these to IP addresses. The name servers have different types of 'records' and these are used to re-direct internet traffic appropriately. CName records, for instance, will redirect web traffic; MX records will deal with email and messaging traffic and so on. Now domain names are, typically, never 'owned'. They are always registered for a fee and for a specified time, typically a one-year minimum. The process of registering a domain name is trivial. One only has to look up availability of a combination of words and choose a desired top-level or other domain (.in, .com, .net, etc). The entire process of registration is automated and requires no manual intervention. Certainly there is no human element involved in overseeing or assessing the legitimacy of any chosen domain name. Once the domain name is registered, it must point somewhere to be effective. Left idle, it defaults to the domain name registrar's name servers. If a domain name is to be used to point to a website, certain records have to be changed to match those of the webhost -- an entity such as GoDaddy, for instance. It is entirely possible to combine multiple records unde....
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.... (iv) Fraudulent Domain Name 7 i.e. 'dailyproductscare.in' and associated e-mail address 'support @ dailyproductscare.in'; (c) That pending the final hearing and disposal of the Suit, this Hon'ble Court be pleased to direct the Defendants No. 14 and 15, to suspend and ensure continued suspension of and block access to Fraudulent Domain Name 1 i.e. 'hul.org.in' and associated e-mail address '[email protected]', (d) That pending the final hearing and disposal of the Suit, this Hon'ble Court be pleased to direct the Defendants No. 14 and 15, to forthwith suspend and ensure continued suspension of and block access to: (i) Fraudulent Domain Name 5 i.e. 'unilevercare.in' and associated e-mail address '[email protected]', (ii) Fraudulent Domain Name 6 i.e. 'unilevers.in' and (iii) Fraudulent Domain Name 7 i.e. 'dailyproductscare.in' and associated e-mail address 'support @dailyproductscare.in; (e) That pending the final hearing and disposal of the Suit, this Hon'ble Court be pleased to direct the Respondent No. 5 to forthwith suspend and ensure the ....
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....and other details pertaining to the fraudulent bank accounts set out in 'Exhibit QQ' hereto; ii. all details/documents pertaining to the due diligence and verification process undertaken by them before opening of the fraudulent bank accounts set out in 'Exhibit QQ' hereto; and iii. details of all transactions undertaken in respect of the fraudulent bank accounts set out in 'Exhibit QQ' hereto; (k) That pending hearing and final disposal of the present suit, this Hon'ble Court be pleased to restrain the Defendants No. 1, 14 and 15 and Respondents No. 1 and 5 from registering or allowing the continued registration of any domain names/websites which contain the names/expressions/word/s 'hul', 'hindustanunilever', 'hindustan lever' 'unlever', 'unilever', 'lever' or parts thereof by themselves or in combination with each other or parts thereof or any combination thereof or with any other name(s)/expressions/word/s that are identical with or deceptively similar to the Applicant's domain names bearing these terms or any combination thereof including any domain names/websites which co....
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....ily circumvented by masking the originating country IP of the user. He or she only needs to use any of the commonly available VPN products. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network. A VPN user establishes a secure connection to another network over the internet, thus by-passing region-restrictions, shielding browsing activity and so on. In its simplest form, a VPN connect an internet-enabled device to a remote server, and allows the VPN user to use that remote server's internet connection. If that remote server is outside jurisdiction, then for all intents and purposes the region-restriction is by-passed: an Indian internet-user could masquerade his or her IP as originating say, in the USA or in Fiji, by accessing a remote server located there. The user will then be 'seen' to be accessing the so-called 'blocked' site from the USA or Fiji; and India-specific access restrictions imposed on domestic internet service providers fail. Now I understand the argument that access to such bypassing technology is still not common, and the average user may not know about it or even how to use it. But VPN products are available for mobile phone platforms as well now. Therefore, oth....
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....nstantly in threat of contempt proceedings. Therefore, those words will be excluded. 22. Dr Saraf states that the registration of domain name unilevercare.co.in has already expired in May 2020. The statement is noted. 23. The same considerations will apply in respect of GoDaddy in terms of prayer clause (b) and to Porkbun in respect of prayer clause (e). 24. Prayer clauses (c) and (d), for the reasons I have already outlined against NEIE and the Dot In Registry cannot be granted. 25. As far as prayer clauses (f), (g) and (h) are concerned, these call for a disclosure of registrant information from Endurance Domains, GoDaddy and Porkbun as also from the .in registry and NEIE in respect of the offending registration. I will grant that relief only against Endurance Domains, GoDaddy and Porkbun, not against the .in registry and NEIE. 26. I come next to the next set of prayer clauses directed against the banks. I cannot grant the blanket injunction in terms of prayer clause (i) to these accounts. But I will grant an order in terms of prayer clause (j) for a disclosure because the amounts involved are significant. 27. As regards prayer clause (k), for the technical reas....