Misspelled Google case may end up in court

The domain was recently registered to local Peter Bojanac -- who claimed to ZDNet Australia  he had applied for a trademark for 'googl' -- but has now been confiscated by .au Domain Administration (auDA). The regulator's chief executive Chris Disspain said it was an obvious misspelling of Google and therefore its registration was against his organisation's domain policy.

Google itself owns the local google.com.au domain name as well as a registered trademark.

Disspain said even if the trademark had been registered, it would not give Bojanac any leverage to keep the domain.

According to Bojanac -- the owner of search engine marketing company DanceString -- the domain was registered with the intent of promoting a new software technology he had acquired. He said his product was not a search engine or an online content portal.

"They're in the process of deleting that domain name," he said. "I've requested the return of it, otherwise I'll take legal action against them."

"Google have a trademark on 'Google'. They don't have a trademark on 'Googl'," he pointed out.

Bojanac accused auDA of not being able to uphold its own guidelines, and said having a legitimate claim to a domain name meant nothing to the regulator.

"I'm going to go to my lawyers this afternoon," he concluded.