Delhi High Court puts a stop to fraudulent Burger King websites

On September 15, Justice Pratibha Singh at the Delhi High Court ordered the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to block a series of domain names and websites impersonating the fast food chain Burger King, to prevent the misuse of the company’s brand and trade marks for fraudulent activity. Justice Singh has also ordered the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) not to allow the purchase of any domain under the ‘.co.in’ or ‘.in’ extensions under the name Burger King. 

Some context:

Burger King went to the Delhi High Court in 2022 seeking protection of its name ‘BURGER KING’ and its logos. It said that certain fake websites were offering franchises under the Burger King trademark to unsuspecting people. It has since found that two more domain names — www.burgerkingind.co.in and www.burgerkingfranchisee.com— were also being used to defraud those wanting to take on a Burger King franchise. It added that one such unsuspecting person had ended up paying Rs 2.65 lakh to a bank account associated with one of the fraudulent websites (www.burgerkingind.co.in).

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What does the current order say:

When Burger King sought legal action for the first time in 2022, the court issued an injunction against some of these fake websites, preventing them from impersonating Burger King. The current order extends the injunction to these two domain names as well. It instructs GoDaddy.com LLC and FastDomain Inc (the Domain Name Registrar of these websites) to block/suspend the domain names.

Besides this, the court has ordered that the bank account used by www.burgerkingind.co.in in defrauding a person out of Rs. 2.65 lakh opened through the West Andheri branch of Bank of Maharashtra shall be frozen with immediate effect. Bank of Maharashtra has been asked to disclose the account holder’s identity, KYC (know your customer) details, and any other documents that it may have. The court has also asked the Delhi Police to obtain the call detail records of three mobile numbers, which can be presumed to belong to the fraudsters operating these websites.

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