CIRA Allows Complaint Over godaddy.ca

In a dispute over the domain name godaddy.ca, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (“CIRA”) settled matters by transferring ownership of the domain name from the registrant to the complainant, GoDaddy.com, Inc., a US-based domain name registrar. In making its decision, CIRA accepted that since 1999 the complainant has been the owner of the domain name godaddy.com and the trade-mark GO DADDY. CIRA further observed that the disputed domain name was registered in December, 2001, and was being used by the registrant to redirect traffic to one of the complainant’s competitor’s websites.

Pursuant to CIRA’s Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy”), the complainant succeeded in its dispute against the registrant by proving, on a balance of probabilities, that: (a) the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to a mark in which the complainant had rights prior to the date of registration of the domain name, and to which such rights still exist; (b) the domain name was registered in bad faith; and (c) there is evidence the registrant had no legitimate interest in the domain name. First, the disputed domain name, godaddy.ca, was found to be confusingly similar to the complainant’s trade-mark, GO DADDY, since the domain name and trade-mark are identical, except for the .ca suffix which is ignored by CIRA in its assessment of a domain name. Second, the domain name was found to have been registered in bad faith since it was found to redirect users to a competing business offering similar services, resulting in the potential disruption of the complainant’s business. Third, the registrant was found to have no legitimate interest in the domain name since, for example, the registrant neither used the domain name as a mark nor did the domain name represent the legal name or other identifier belonging to the registrant.

This entry first appeared in the May 31, 2007 edition of lawsof.com. For a copy of the CIRA decision, click here.