The country's first cyber battle in the court of law between ICICI and IL&FSweb subsidiary Investsmart India over the term-lending institution allegedlyregistering its website with a domain name sounding similar to the latter'ssite has provided a temporary respite to ICICI.

The controversy turned into a legal battle when Investsmart sued ICICI overregistering its website, which they say sounds identical to the name oftheir website `Investsindiamart.com' and thus confuses potential clients andcustomers, who may `inadvertently' log on to the other site."Globally, domain names co-exist with small differences," ICICI Web TradeCEO Madhabi Puri Buch said. "When one registers domain names, it has to bepurely descriptive and not distinctive," Puri Buch said adding: "Theinterest of customers cannot become a monopoly for somebody."

"Our stand is that nobody can confuse the customers. If they (ICICI) didnot want to change their domain name, at least they can provide a pathway toour site," Investsmart India mananging director Hemang Raja said.

In its defence, ICICI reportedly produced a list of 89 such domain namesbefore the court that sound similar, though are registered by differentowners. The institution also brought out global precedents in this regard toprove its point.

Investsmart alleges ICICI registered its website just four days after thelaunch of its e-broking site. According to Investsmart sources, the webcompany started getting complaints from its customers in the first week ofMarch saying the site was not operational. The company then discovered anidentically sounding site registered by ICICI.

Investsmart sources insist they approached ICICI asking for a meetingbetween the managing directors of the two companies, but received noresponse.

ICICI officials refute this allegation saying "It is true they (Investsmart)approached us asking for an appointment with our MD K V Kamath. Kamath saidhe was ready to meet them on March 8. They went ahead and filed a suit onMarch 7."