From Latin To Local Scripts: New Avenues For Domain Abuse Targeting Brands

INTRODUCTION

India, with a population of 1.46 billion people, as of 2025, is not only one of the largest upcoming digital markets, but is also one of the most linguistically  diverse countries. The Constitution of India recognizes 22 scheduled languages as official languages; and this reflects a plural identity rooted in regional scripts and vernacular expression.

At present, the internet adoption rate of the country is growing at 6.5% yearly increase in users. It is interesting to note that a considerable portion of these new users are, in fact, first time internet users, who are more fluent in native languages instead of English. For those users, the current internet, being primarily in English, serves as a barrier. Thus, the future of India’s digital ecosystem needs to evolve from being monolingual to being more inclusive of the linguistic reality of its users.

WHAT ARE DOMAIN NAMES AND HOW DO NON-ENGLISH CHARACTERS FIT IN?

Traditionally, when the web was imagined, it was coded to accept only ASCII characters, including English alphabets (A–Z) and numbers (0–9). Scripts like Devanagari, Tamil, Bengali, Arabic, or Chinese got no space in this design. Progressively though, technology infrastructures changed and international initiatives like Universal Acceptance (UA) came to champion a network that could identify all acceptable digital identifiers such as domain names, email addresses, and URLs, in local scripts. Implementation of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) is an immediate result of this effort, permitting domain names to be shown in regional languages.

India is also in the process of making this transition into a multilingual era. Various government ministries have already started using Hindi domain names, e.g., गृहमंत्रालय.सरकार.भारत, indicating a move toward culturally nuanced digital identities.

Since computers internally work based on ASCII, non-English domain names are technically encoded into a format called Punycode. For example:

●      गृहमंत्रालय.सरकार.भारत → xn—i1b5bzbybhfo5c8b4bxh.xn—11b7cb3a6a.xn—h2brj9c

While end users view the script as Hindi, the underlying technology provides compatibility with browsers and the Domain Name System (DNS).

NEW REGIMES BRING NEW CHALLENGES

While multilingual domain names enable greater digital accessibility, they expose brand owners to the murky corners of the internet; and introduce a new level of risk. While domain name squatting was already prevalent for the domain names in English , there is now an additional possibility in Indian scripts. There are chances of opportunists pre-emptively registering domain names containing commonly used Hindi words, especially those resembling official institutions or public services, with the intention of misleading users or reselling them at exorbitant prices.

In a country like India, where widespread digital literacy is still evolving, website algorithms that use Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, or any other Indian language in visual presentation can appear to be legitimate to the unsuspecting user. This entails the risk of users to phishing, fraud, and impersonation. Although the jurisprudence around domain name issues is at a pretty evolved stage in India, and protection is offered for famous brands and names, extending and enforcing them across languages can be complex. Further, small changes like variations in spellings, different scripts coupled with user unfamiliarity creates a space for violators to exploit.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR?

As India adopts multi-lingual domain names, the shift is not only technological but also legal. Domain names, especially those in native scripts, are going to intersect directly with trademark law as well as consumer protection, cybercrime law and digital governance.

1)     Trademark Protection Across Various Scripts

Historically, brand owners in India have secured their trademarks in English, believing that is enough. However, with the advent of Hindi and other scripts based domains, a brand's legal personhood should now also cross into the major Indian scripts to preempt any disputes and it is recommended to also secure rights in domain names and at times to redirect all domain names to one unique main domain to protect the correct perception of trust. (Note: Under the Trade Marks Rules, 2017 (Rule 28),  Applicants are required to provide transliteration and translation when applying for marks in non-English scripts.)

2)     Domain Squatting Across Various Scripts: An Enforcement Perspective

The legal mechanisms to combat domain squatting exist under INDRP (NIXI) for ‘.in’ domains and UDRP (ICANN) for global gTLDs.

However, to enforce the protection afforded to Hindi or non-English script domains, there may be a need for a panel of members who have proficiency in the language and context. Otherwise, it will be interesting to see how an unfamiliar panel will interpret ‘confusing similarity’ between two words that are conceptually and phonetically similar in a script unfamiliar to them.

As digital identities intertwine, the lines between domain strategy and trademark strategy are blurring. Good practices would include auditing brand names and securing registration of the same across major scripts.

CONCLUSION

India's journey towards a multilingual internet represents a crucial cultural and technological transition. By introducing domain names in Hindi and other Indian script, the country seeks to catalyse new gateways to digital access for millions who have previously been excluded due to language barriers.

As with any move forward, this progress towards language inclusion has many layers of legal, regulatory and brand protection hurdles to overcome. With the use of domain names shifting from ASCII/English, traditional enforcement mechanisms will be confronted with multidimensional issues where script, sound, and meaning intersect.

It is not enough to be simply technologically ready to support a multilingual internet, it must also be supported by legal foresight, evidenced-based policymaking, and social readiness for the evolving digital landscapes.

Avanee Tewari

Managing Associate

avanee.tewari@iprattorneys.com