Executives at Petroliam Nasional Berhad, the Malaysian state-owned petro-giant better known by its trademark Petronas, were upset when they learned that Web users typing the company’s name on search engines might find themselves redirected to a pornographic website.
Petronas’ first instinct was to go after the individual who had registered two domain names that included the word “petronas” in the URLs. But when that proved too difficult, it turned its attention to the domain name registrar, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GoDaddy.com, for its part in the alleged “cybersquatting”—the act of intentionally registering or using a domain name confusingly similar to a trademark.
