GoDaddy may “exit India” over cybersquatting legal battle
GoDaddy has said it may be forced to leave the Indian market if a court ruling forcing it and other registrars to reveal the identities of registrants is not reversed, according to a report.
Reuters has scooped 5,000 pages of documents the company filed as part of its appeal of a December 2025 court ruling, which said that registrars must hand over Whois info to parties with “legitimate interests” within 72 hours.
In its High Court appeal, GoDaddy said it has no way to determine who has a legitimate interest to such data, and that to hand it over would put its customers privacy and security at risk, Reuters reported.
Namecheap and Hosting Concepts (Registrar.eu) have also challenged the ruling, the report said.
The December ruling came as a result of lawsuits filed by 20 companies including Amazon, McDonald’s and Microsoft, which are worried about cybersquatters, phishers and fraudsters impersonation their brands.
ICANN already has policies in place that deal with when registrars have to hand over Whois/RDAP records, but they largely concern DNS abuse like phishing and malware rather than IP infringement and fraud.
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