Groupon India has won back 'brand' name but battle for domain name groupon.in still in court

World's largest group buying site Groupon has recently rebranded its Indian operations for the second time in almost a year – from Crazeal to Groupon India – and now sports the mother brand. The site crazeal.com now redirects to www.groupon.co.in, but the legal battle is not over yet, Ankur Warikoo, CEO of Groupon India, told Techcircle.in.

According to him, the firm has now won the right to use 'Groupon India' as a brand name, but the fight for the URL groupon.in is still on as the company, ValueNet Ecommerce Pvt Ltd, holds the copyright for the domain name. The groupon.in URL is not active at present.

If, indeed, the local firm manages to prevail in the legal fight for the domain name, it may spell trouble for Groupon as consumers often find it difficult to distinguish between similar domains and Groupon can potentially lose traffic and business to the rival site.

Groupon entered India via an acquisition in January 2011. It had acquired the then SoSasta.com which was then rebranded as Crazeal. Earlier, Groupon told Techcircle.in it is selling a deal every 33 seconds and eyeing profits by 2013-end. Groupon India has also launched a merchant centre in Chennai, the technology backend for the 'merchant center' app launched earlier this year. The app enables merchants to monitor their deals in real time.

Groupon is also planning to launch mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms. "There are two kinds of apps, one for the merchant and one for the customer. The merchant app is already available in India and enables merchants to identify the customers who are interested in their deals. The one for customers enables them to buy deals on the move. It is available in most of the countries and most probably, will be launched in India before year-end," Warikoo told Techcircle.in.