Google's complaint that the domain name groovle.com is confusingly similar to its own is without foundation, an ICANN-approved arbitration body has ruled.

Google filed its complaint with the National Arbitration Forum, one of the bodies approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for resolving disagreements under its Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy.

In its complaint against 207 Media, filed Nov. 6, Google claimed that the disputed groovle.com domain name was "nearly identical or confusingly similar" to its own, differing in only two letters from google.com.

That argument didn't sway the panel of three judges appointed by the Forum to hear the case: they found that adding an R and trading a G for a V gave an entirely different sense to the domain name, that of "groove" or "groovy".

The panel declined to examine Google's other claims that 207 Media has no rights or legitimate interests in the groovle.com domain name, and that the domain name was registered and used in bad faith.

Full story: Computerworld