Delhi High Court: In a case wherein suit was filed by the plaintiff seeking a decree of permanent injunction restraining the defendants from allowing any user on their platform from using the plaintiff’s trade mark ‘TATA SKY’, a Single Judge Bench of Prathiba M. Singh*, J., opined that the proliferation of various fake profiles would make it extremely difficult for the plaintiff to approach the Court on every occasion, thus, to dispose of the suit with an effective framework in place for the plaintiff, the Court directed that LinkedIn shall place on record the details of the Grievance Officers and the Rules applicable to persons creating LinkedIn profiles, as per LinkedIn’s own policy.
It was submitted by the plaintiff that numerous individuals who were not employees of the plaintiff had created profiles on the platform of LinkedIn (Defendant 1), falsely indicating themselves to be employees of the plaintiff. It was further submitted that certain defendants were unlawfully using the name ‘TATA SKY’ in their profile descriptions on the platform without any authorization, license, or permission from the plaintiff. Specifically, Defendants 7 and 44, despite not being official retail sellers of the plaintiff’s product, had portrayed themselves as retailers of the plaintiff on their profiles.
This Court in its order dated 26-4-2023, had directed that the plaintiff was free to approach the Grievance Officer of LinkedIn giving the list of all fake profiles so that appropriate action might be taken.
The counsel for the plaintiff submitted that the plaintiff had approached the Grievance Officer and requisite action had been taken but the counsel further prayed for the grant of a dynamic injunction in the present case.
The Court opined that the proliferation of various fake profiles would make it extremely difficult for the plaintiff to approach the Court on every occasion, thus, to dispose of the suit with an effective framework in place for the plaintiff, the following directions were issued:
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LinkedIn shall place on record the details of the Grievance Officers and the Rules applicable to persons creating LinkedIn profiles, as per LinkedIn’s own policy.
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Linkedin shall also place on record the SoP, if any, followed by the Grievance Officers whenever a grievance was received under Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (‘2021 Rules’).
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If the plaintiff had any outstanding issue or suggestions in respect of manner in which the grievances were addressed by Linkedin, the plaintiff might also place its own note on record.
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In addition, it was made clear that the details of the Grievance Officers in terms of 2021 Rules including the physical and email address shall be published openly for public access on LinkedIn’s website.
The matter would next be listed on 28-11-2023.
[Tata Play Ltd. v. LinkedIn Corporation, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 3924, decided on 7-7-2023]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Prathiba M. Singh
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiff: Tanmaya Mehta, Advocate;
For the Defendants: Sanjay Kumar, Abhishek Kumar Singh, Saurabh Kumar, Rose Maria Sebi, Advocates.
