GoDaddy warns India’s fake-website crackdown could hurt legitimate businesses

GoDaddy is warning that India’s drive to stop fake websites could end up exposing legitimate businesses and redrawing who controls the infrastructure of the internet. The domain seller says sweeping new requirements tied to a Delhi High Court order, including weaker privacy protections and faster disclosure of registrant details, go well beyond fraud prevention.

The dispute grew out of a court effort to stop sites that impersonated well-known brands. The Delhi court blocked more than 1,100 fake websites in December 2025, after a year in which India received 2.4 million complaints of alleged cyber fraud totaling about $2.4 billion. That scale has made online fraud politically sensitive for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, especially as bogus shopping pages and fake franchise offers have proliferated.

The court record shows how deeply the case reached into the plumbing of the internet. In the Jockey matter, the Delhi High Court reserved judgment on May 31, 2025, pronounced it on December 24, 2025, and uploaded it on January 8, 2026. The batch judgment explicitly weighs privacy considerations against disclosure obligations for domain-name registrars, and it names ICANN, registry operators and registrars as part of the enforcement chain. Its index includes directions to domain-name registrars and registry operators, directions to the government, and dynamic-plus injunctions.

Another Delhi High Court judgment in a McDonald’s-related matter was also pronounced on December 24, 2025 and uploaded on January 12, 2026. That ruling also dealt with fake and fraudulent domain names and mirror websites, underscoring why trademark owners have pressed for stronger remedies. In the Jockey case, the record describes domain names and websites as the business’s “Online Soul.”

GoDaddy’s concern is that the remedy may be too blunt. The company says it has no practical way to decide who has a legitimate interest in a domain record or to police domain names globally in the way the order appears to require. Its appeal documents run to more than 5,000 pages, and it argues that public access to registrant details could invite harassment, stalking and security risks for legitimate site owners.

The broader fight is not new. Lawsuits against fake shopping sites and bogus franchise offers have been filed since 2019 by dozens of Indian and global firms, including Amazon and McDonald’s. The latest clash now reaches beyond trademarks and fraud into a larger question: how far India can push anti-fraud rules before they start shaping who can own, hide and defend an online identity.