The domain history of Ukrainian Google: the next stage
A few days ago, the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine held a hearing regarding a long-running domain dispute over the google.ua domain name. The court's final decision has not yet been published. Infonic obtained a comment from Google Inc.'s press service.
«The Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine upheld the legality of the decisions of lower courts regarding Go Ogle LLC, according to which Go Ogle LLC is obliged to stop using the commercial name "Google" in the domain name google.ua," Google Inc.'s press service reported. In addition, Infonica learned some details of the lawsuit.
This week it became known, that the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine returned the case regarding the google.ua domain to the court of first instance for further consideration. According tostatementThe Supreme Court partially upheld the decision of the previous courts regarding Go Ogle. The trial will now proceed between Google Inc. and Go Ogle.
From personal .ua.
It is expected that the court of first instance will re-examine the case in relation to the part of the claim concerning the demands made against the Hostmaster company.
Hostmaster is not responsible for the delegation of the google.ua domain, as it has no direct contractual relationship with the defendant, Go Ogle LLC, and cannot be a defendant in Google Inc.'s lawsuit. The domain name registrar may enforce such a court decision. If Hostmaster complies with the decision, it will be in breach of its agreement with the registrar currently maintaining the domain.
The Ukrainian domain name registration system operates through a three-tier contractual relationship. These include the Domain Administrator (Hostmaster), the Registrar, and the Registrant (an individual or legal entity registering the domain in its own interests). If Hostmaster complies with the court's decision and cancels the delegation of the google.ua domain, it will be in breach of its agreement with the Registrar and, therefore, may be subject to legal action by the Registrar for failure to fulfill the agreement. Therefore, claims against Hostmaster in the dispute over the google.ua domain are unfounded. Only the Registrant of this domain name can cancel this type of delegation by filing a corresponding application with the Registrar. It is expected that this part of Google Ukraine's claims against Hostmaster will be reviewed in the court of first instance.
The correct legal solution, taking into account the domain name registration system in Ukraine and the relationships between market participants, can be formulated as follows: the court, by its decision, must oblige the registrant (domain owner) to delete the domain (domain name record) by submitting a request to the Registrar. If the registrant refuses to comply with the court's decision, they will violate Ukrainian law and, therefore, may be subject to additional sanctions under Ukrainian law.
The decision of the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine to remand the case regarding Hostmaster's liability is a positive example, taking into account the interests of all market participants and supporting civilized interactions between them.
