It took Google more than three years to overcome its most persistent adversary in Ukraine – Go Ogle, a dating company that had been using the google.ua address.
The obstacles that faced the global Internet giant are just one example of the battles on the market of Ukrainian domain names ending in .ua.
Companies use all kinds of tricks to try to piggyback on the popularity of well-known brands by using their names or taking a similar name. Protecting a brand and claiming back a domain name can be a long on complex process, as Google found out.
When Google first decided to try to register the google.ua address in 2006, it found out that the site belonged to Go Ogle. First, Google had to persuade a court that its namesake was using the famous brand’s reputation.
For several months, the website was dead, while Google carried out work to prove it was a commonly known brand, including a nationwide survey. Only this summer did it finally get the google.ua domain name.
This replication of existing brands in domain names – known as cybersquatting – is common in Ukraine, according to Viktoria Ostapchuk, a lawyer who specializes in patents at Synergy law firm.
“The rules of registering a domain followed by .ua only require a trademark with the same name,” Ostapchuk said. “There is only one spelling of each word, but there could be 45 similar trademarks registered legally, just in different spheres of business. That means that those 44, who didn’t register the domain name first, lose the chance to have it. That provokes the disputes.”
Google was able to win its battle as it proved its name is commonly known in Ukraine.
But not every company can afford to carry out the nationwide survey needed to prove people know its name all over Ukraine.
This is far from the only problem websites in Ukraine face.
One more trick with domain names is “typo squatting” – registering domain names spelled like an existing one, but with some letters mistyped on purpose.
Oleksandr Olshansky, head of
Imena.ua, the only Ukrainian
company, which can register .com domains.
“People often make mistakes,” said Oleksandr Olshansky, head of Imena.ua, one of around 170 companies in Ukraine that can register .ua addresses, and the only one that can also register other addresses, such as .com.
“I even once registered “rezetka” and then gave it to “Rozetka,” the online shop, he added. “It now yields 5 percent of traffic.”
According to Olshansky, it’s hard to say whether this is legal or not. “It’s for the courts to decide, though I am sure that in 99.9 percent of cases ‘typo squatting’ won’t be recognized as a violation, he said.
Olshansky said such tricks with domain names are popular in Ukraine.
“Sometimes they appear to be legal, sometimes not,” he said, noting that there are ways to protect yourself. “Nobody stops you from getting all possible domains with your website name, for instance website.ua, website.com.ua etc., if you expect your website to be popular.”
Otherwise, there is a chance someone will register them and try to sell them to you or earn money from selling advertisements on this clone, which will be visited by Internet users who misspell a website address.
“It happens quite often,” Olshansky said, adding that two such sites have been sold for about $15,000.
The registration of a website followed by .ua only is in itself a bureaucratic affair, as companies first have to get a trademark.
“It takes about $1,000 and up to three months to get the trademark, and only $10 and one minute to register a domain,” Olshansky said. “Such an archaic system remains only in our country.”
He added that there are only 500,000 Ukrainian domain names, against around 12 million in Germany.
“Ukrainians often buy foreign domains due to the imperfection of Ukrainian system,” Olshansky said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected].
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