In a Bombay High Court judgment delivered by Justice G.S. Patel, held that domain name Registrar cannot black-list or block a domain name that has already been registered. In the case of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) v. Endurance Domains Technology LLP, the Respondent has been authorised to function by the National Internet Exchange of India. It is an Indian Domain Name Register, and provides inter alia registrations of India-specific domains, apart from other commonly used and top level domains such as ".com", ".net", etc.

The Plaintiff, HUL, has various valuable trademarks which cover a range of products. Its global parent is Unilever, and has a domain name www.hul.co.in.

Brief summary of the case :

Fake and fraudulent domain names

Defendant no. 5, along with many other persons had been using variants of the Plaintiff's domain name, and had been registering fake and fraudulent domain names and setting up websites. Their main aim was to attract and entice unsuspecting customers and looting money on fake promise of being certified and tied-up with HUL.

Said fraudulent domain names were registered through providers like Endurance Domains, GoDaddy or Porkbun. The Court stated that there was no doubt in the fact that these domain names were registered with malafide  intentions and constituted to infringement of the Plaintiff's statutory rights.

The Court stated that domain names are never "owned". They are only and always registered for a fee, for a specific period of time, usually on yearly basis. It further held that there is no human element in overseeing or assessing the legitimacy of domain names. Hence, once one is registered, it must point somewhere to be effective.

The registration of a domain name can be suspended, but the registrar cannot, per se, "block access" to a domain name.

Blocking Access

Instructions to block accessing only serves to block the access to a remote website or server (even overseas) from an IP address of domestic origin. By masking the IP of the originating country, this block can easily be diverted.

According to the Court, such an 'access block' only fools an applicant into believing it does any good, while on the contrary, it doesn't. It only gives them a fake sense of security. Such 'blocks' can even give any ill-informed government authority an entirely unwarranted sense of power or authority.

However, a domain name Registrar can always suspend a domain name that is registered, without black-listing or blocking the same. But, this is restricted with a time limit, and there cannot be a continued suspension of the same, at least in the current technology.