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Typosquatting
Domaining Guide
Typosquatting
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Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, is a form of
cybersquatting which relies on mistakes such as
typographical errors made by Internet users when inputting a
website address into
a web
browser. Should a user accidentally enter an incorrect website address, they
may be led to an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter.
Overview
Generally, the victim site of typosquatting will be a frequently visited
website. The typosquatter's
URL will usually be
one of four kinds, all similar to the victim site address:
(In the following, the intended website is "example.com")
- A common misspelling of the intended site: exemple.com
- A misspelling based on typing errors: xample.com or exxample.com
- A differently phrased domain name: examples.com
- A different top-level domain: example.org
Once in the typosquatter's site, the user may also be tricked into thinking
that they are in fact in the real site; through the use of copied or similar
logos, website layouts or content. Sometimes competitors of the victim site will
do this.
Alternatively, the user will be forwarded to a site of a completely different
nature to what they intended. This tactic was infamously used by
John Zuccarini, who redirected domains targeting children to pornographic
websites. Sometimes, the typosquatters will use the false addresses to
distribute viruses, adware, spyware or other malware. Some are also shock sites. More common are benign
domain parking sites, selling advertising to firms based on keywords similar
to the misspelled word in the domain.
As with
cybersquatting in the past, the term typosquatting has been used by covetous
parties in an effort to unseat domain registrants from brandable variants of
generic
domain names. The shortage of poignant and generic domain names in the
coveted .com
generic top-level domain has left many hopeful registrants with no
alternative but to locate catchy variants of existing generic words e.g.
Orbitz.com
(popular travel site with "z" to replace the "s") in an effort to find "new
land" on which to build their
website. As
in the preceding example, the line between typosquatting and registering a
brandable variant of a generic domain name blurs dependent on the circumstance
of each situation.
Combatting typosquatting
A victim website will usually send a
cease and desist letter to the offender at first, in an attempt to quell the
activity.
It may also try to purchase the website address from the typosquatter, which
could have been the typosquatter's aim all along.
Occasionally,
lawsuits will be taken against the offending site or individual.
A company may try and preempt typosquatting by obtaining a number of websites
with common misspellings and redirect them to the main, correctly spelled
website. For example www.gooogle.com, www.goolge.com, www.gogle.com
www.gewgle.com, and others, all redirect to www.google.com.
Microsoft has released new software to help combat this issue. The software is called "Strider
Typo-Patrol". This is a tool that scans and shows third-party domains that are
allegedly typosquatting. It also lets parents restrict access to typo-squatting
domains that show sexually oriented ads on typos of children's web sites.
Typosquatting and the law
"Typosquatting" is a meaningless term where the law is concerned. Laws
generally are not concerned about registrations of domain names that are similar
to other domain names or similar to existing trademarks, unless some other
important factor is involved.
Criminal laws are mostly silent about the registration of domain names that
are typographically similar to other names. The first (perhaps only?) example of
such a criminal law is a US law making it illegal to use a "misleading" domain
name for the purpose of deceiving a person to access obscenity.
Non-criminal law is primarily concerned with unfair competition
between people who register domain names that are typographically similar to
known trademarks. This is the "hook" for trademark infringement: not simply
using the same or a similar name, but using the same or a similar name for the
purpose of competition with the trademark owner. In other words, it may be
perfectly acceptable to use a domain name that is confusingly similar to an
existing trademark IF the web page standing behind the new domain name is not
used to compete with the trademark owner, OR if the web page standing behind the
new domain name is used to help consumers to locate the product identified in
the trademark.
Free speech, not unfair competition
On April 17, 2006, controversial evangelical
Jerry
Falwell failed to get the Supreme Court to review a decision allowing
Christopher Lamparello to use
"www.fallwell.com". Relying on a plausible misspelling of Falwell's name,
Lamparello's gripe site presents misdirected visitors with scriptural references
that counter the fundamentalist preacher's scathing rebukes against
homosexuality. The high court let stand a 2005 Fourth Circuit finding that "the use of a mark in a domain name for a gripe
site criticizing the markholder does not constitute cybersquatting."
Mitigating in favor of Mr. Lamparello's case was that his website did not
mimic Falwell's site stylistically so as to confuse site visitors into believing
that Falwell endorsed Lamparello's site content.
Further, that Lamparello's site is non-commercial preempts a claim of unfair
business practices. Whereas, a communicative forum for comment and criticism
constitutes a "bona fide non-commercial or fair use" of a trademark interest,
under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).
On his site, Lamparello provided a link to an Amazon.com webpage selling a
book he favored. The court determined this did not diminish the communicative
function of his website, saying use of a domain name to engage in criticism or
commentary "even where done for profit" does not alone show a bad faith intent to profit (Lamparello did not stand to gain financially from sales of the
book at Amazon.com).
This case demonstrated the importance of balancing the property interests of
trademark owners with the interests of Internet users who seek to make lawful
uses of others' marks, “including for purposes such as comparative
advertising, comment, criticism, parody, news reporting, fair use, etc."
When the alleged infringer establishes a gripe site that criticizes the
markholder, the markholder must show a “bad-faith attempt” on the part of the
infringer to profit from the misuse.
Examples of typosquatting
- Wikipedia is a victim of typosquatting: [www.wiipedia.org],
[www.eikipedia.org], [www.wilipedia.org], [en.wikipedi.org],
[en.wikipediia.org] and [www.wikipedi.com] [as of 2006], are all websites
which contain pop-up ads, spyware/adware downloads, and ad-generating search
engines.
- A related gambit is obtaining
"800" numbers that correspond to misspellings; a good illustration is AT&T's
sudden abandonment of "1-800-OPERATOR" and replacing it with
"1-800-CALL-ATT". Many callers would misspell operator, thus MCI
Communications was raking in a lot of business with
"1-800-OPERATER", reaping the benefits of AT&T's advertising. (In both
numbers, the final "R" is superfluous.)
- The
National Austrian Public Service Broadcaster "ORF" was typosquatted by
0rf.at a
net art site.
- Google's anti-typosquatting defense is incomplete; as of April 2006,
"http://www.goggle.com" redirects to a rogue software vendor
rather than to Google. The site attempts to spam users with a popup and foist an executable download upon them
without any further user action.
- Apparently people at gni.org are "typosquatting" Savannah, since there
is an SSH server running at savannah.gni.org.[1]
- Domino's Pizza's UK website, www.dominos.co.uk, will redirect you to
British Sky Broadcasting's package ordering site if it is misspelled as
www.dominoes.co.uk.
"Catchall" typosquatting
In addition to purchases of individual domain name, several attempts have
been made by larger corporations to profit from users' typos by redirecting them
without their knowledge.
- Microsoft's Internet Explorer automatically redirects users' mistyped
URL queries to their MSN Search page. Though a user can reconfigure their
browser to use a different search tool, Google, one
of MSN's biggest rivals, is not in the list. However, on their
web site, Google has explained how to make their search engine the IE
default for mistyped urls.
- In 2003,
top-level domain registry operator
VeriSign's Site Finder automatically redirected traffic sent to unregistered
domains. This caused a fair amount of outrage from the Internet standards
community, and an emergency patch to BIND was issued
to circumvent VeriSign's actions. VeriSign disabled the service after only
three weeks.
- Paxfire, a startup company, sells partner Internet service providers a tool that redirects mistyped queries to a Paxfire-generated page with sponsored advertiser content related to the
mistyped "hotword". Revenue generated from user clicks is split between
Paxfire and the Internet service provider.
- Certain types of malware pose as browser plugins and redirect a user's web requests or search queries without
their knowledge or consent, even if the URLs themselves are properly typed.
- In
August 2006, the operators of the ccTLD for the nation of Cameroon added a
wildcard DNS record for the entirety of the .cm TLD. Since .cm is a common
possible typo for .com, some have argued that this action constitutes a form
of typosquatting. ICANN does
not have any direct control over what national registrars do with their
ccTLDs (as it did for VeriSign).
See also
External links
Home | Up | Domain name speculation | Name generator | Domain parking | Domain hack | Typosquatting | Domain sniping | Domain hijacking | Cybersquatting | Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy | List of most popular given names
Domaining Guide, made by MultiMedia | Websites for sale
This guide is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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