The Internet is full of fakes. An Indian court aims to address the problem by requiring more transparency from domain registrars to make it easier to combat fraud. And while the intentions may be good, Reuters is reporting That major American domain registrar, GoDaddy, is ringing warning bells that the court’s decision could fundamentally reshape the Internet far beyond India’s borders.
Fraudulent domains have been a constant problem for India, which has seen its population become increasingly online in recent years. According to our world in dataIndia went from 15% of its more than 1.46 billion residents with Internet access in 2015 to 70% in 2025. This is a huge jump in a short period of time, which means there are many people with limited knowledge about online literacy and cybersecurity best practices. That makes those users a target for online fraud. The country’s National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) reported identifying more than 1,100 phishing domains only in the first quarter of 2025, and new ones are constantly emerging.
Many of these scam sites use big brand names to try to trick visitors into interacting. This has led to many lawsuits by major American companies, by Reuterswho have pressured the courts and the government to block counterfeit sites and illegal font users who rely on misspelled URLs to trick people. But in an effort to respond to those companies, the The Delhi High Court went a step further and turned it into a domain registrar’s problem.
Late last year, the court under the Supreme Court of India ruled that domain registrars can no longer offer domain buyers the ability to hide their information as a default option, a common service offered to prevent people from simply searching for a domain owner’s name and personal information. Instead, buyers would have to manually opt-in to privacy and potentially pay an additional fee for it. The ruling would also require registrars to adopt Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols, which would require reviewing government-issued IDs or other identification documents. And if authorities or courts came asking for information about a domain owner, registrars would be required to provide that information within 72 hours.
All of this is intended to protect trademark owners, who are scammed for their images, and the public, who continue to fall for fraudulent sites. But Reuters reported that domain registrar giant GoDaddy warned that it would also fundamentally alter one of the privacy expectations people currently have on the modern Internet.
If the privacy measures currently offered to domain buyers were suspended, GoDaddy said it would be trivially easy to find sensitive information about a site’s owner. Simple tools that track WHOIS, a public database and protocol used to look up domain name registration details, would reveal things like a person’s name, address, phone number, and email address.
And because domain names are not region-restricted and can be accessed from anywhere, India’s ruling could potentially force companies like GoDaddy to comply in a way that could require it to regulate all domain addresses globally under the court’s order.
GoDaddy is reportedly appealing the ruling. according to Reutersand the court is expected to hear their objections on July 16. So go ahead and mark it on your calendars, as this could be the date when a pillar of Internet privacy falls apart.
