Delhi HC Orders Google to Suspend URLs of Fake 'Starbucks Franchise' Invitations on Google Forms

Delhi HC Orders Google to Suspend URLs of Fake 'Starbucks Franchise' Invitations on Google Forms

On Monday, the Delhi High Court instructed Google LLC to temporarily disable specific URLs hosting Google forms that were soliciting invitations for a 'Starbucks franchise.'

It's important to highlight that Starbucks does not follow a franchise model in India.

The bench headed by Justice Anish Dayal held the position that Starbucks deserved legal protection, as the forms were being disseminated by impostors with the intent to obtain private information and data from the public.

The court was addressing an application within a trademark and copyright infringement case filed by Starbucks. In April 2023, the court had issued a temporary injunction favoring the coffee chain. Subsequently, upon discovering certain entities impersonating Starbucks franchisees through Google forms, Starbucks filed an application to suspend the URLs associated with these forms.

Starbucks' legal representative asserted that the impostors were attempting to gather information from the public for non-existent Starbucks franchise opportunities in India. In response, Google LLC's counsel expressed no objection to the relief sought by Starbucks, as long as the suspended URLs were directly linked to the issues raised in the ongoing legal proceedings.

Upon Starbucks' counsel confirming that the listed URLs in the complaint specifically pertained to Google Forms collecting information for Starbucks franchises, the Court issued an order for the suspension of these URLs within a week.

Starbucks was represented by Advocates Rima Majumdar and Shilpi Sinha.

Google LLC was represented by Advocates Neel Mason, Vihan Dang, Ujjawal Bhargava and Pragya Jain.

Advocates Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, Srish Kumar Mishra, Alexander Mathai Paikaday and Krishnan V appeared for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Advocate Chhavi Arora represented National Internet Exchange of India.

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