A Romanian electro-IT retailer has accused a competitor of stealing its online clients by illegally using its brand as a keyword in sponsored Google searches.

The owners of local electro-IT retailer Domo and Domo.ro domain have sued the company that owns online retailer Cel.ro for stealing their clients, reports local Wall-street.ro.

Starting July this year, Cel.ro has allegedly misled the online customers of Domo, through an illegal practice. Those who tried to access the Domo online store by searching the word “domo” on Google were actually redirected to Cel.ro, this being the first result generated by the search engine, through a sponsored link that contained the phrase "domo.ro".

The Domo.ro domain name has been used unlawfully for several months, after being included in the web page link www.cel.ro/domo and in its content, as a hyperlink that was also taking users to the same web page – Cel.ro.

Moreover, in July, the company owning Cel.ro apparently filed an application at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM) to register the Domo brand abusively, according to Dinu Petre, partner Cunescu, Balaciu si Asociatii, the law firm that represents the owners of Domo.

Thus, the law firm has started taken the legal steps to “recover the damages resulted from the actions of Cel.ro representatives against Domo.ro in the online, but also in the case of trying to take over the brand at OSIM,” he added.

Domo, which was one of the top electro-IT retailers in Romania, closed down all its 75 stores in November 2015. The brand's owners decided to keep only the online store domo.ro. Domo's biggest competitors, Altex and Flanco took over most of the physical stores and increased their business.

Cel.ro is one of the biggest local online retailers. Corsar Online SRL, the company that owns the brand, had sales of EUR 39 million in 2015.

GM: Domo will keep some stores in Romania, focus on online

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com