Tag Archives: Typosquatting

Mon 8th June 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Parking association monetizes typos – with a TM holder's permission - Brand-approved typosquatting? Sort of. A new domain name parking service promises to help people monetize brand related domain names, such as typos, in a way that brand owners support. Protected Parking “enables domain owners to monetize brand related domains with the full knowledge and explicit agreement from the brand owner,” according to the company. If you have typos or traffic domain names that include trademarks, the company will monetize them through the respective company’s affiliate ... read more ...
Mon 30th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Royal Caribbean files lawsuit to constraint typos - Cruise line goes cruising for typos. Cruise company Royal Caribbean Cruises has filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against two typos of its RoyalCaribbean.com domain name. The two domains — RoyalCaribean.com and RoyalCarribean.com — forward to another domain name that is a lead gen site for cruises and is branded with “Royal Caribbean”. I wouldn’t be surprised if these domain names get a good bit of traffic. While writing this story I’ve confused the typo and correct version multiple times. It’s ... read more ...
Tue 21st October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AnnualCreditReport.com goes after a large typosquatter - Company behind government-mandated free annual credit report site demands control of 227 typos. Central Source, a company created by the three major U.S. consumer credit bureaus, has filed an in rem lawsuit against 227 typos of its AnnualCreditReport.com domain name. This is the sixth cybersquatting lawsuit the company has filed this year to crack down on people typosquatting its domain name. A test of the domain names shows that most use Moniker forwarding to land ... read more ...
Mon 24th March 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cybersquatting lawsuit filed opposite AnnualCreditReport.com typos - Company goes after ten 37 typos of popular website. A company created by the three major U.S. consumer credit bureaus has filed an in rem lawsuit against 10 typo domain names. [Update: The company actually filed four separate lawsuits against a total of 37 domain names.] Central Source LLC was formed to operate the AnnualCreditReport.com website after the U.S. government passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in 2003. The law mandated that consumers get free ... read more ...
Thu 12th December 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
It looks like someone is already typosquatting on recently substituted tip turn domain names - Just a few dozen second level domain names for new TLDs have been registered so far. Yet it looks like people are already typosquatting on them. Last week .Club Domains LLC, the company that’s launching the .club top level domain name, bought nicclub.com for $3,500 on Sedo. Anyone who has been following new top level domain name delegations will immediately recognize this as a defensive move for what will become a typo of .Club’s first second level domain name, ... read more ...
Wed 2nd October 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Health Insurance Marketplaces are here, and so are a Cybersquatters - Typosquatters were quick to register domain names similar to new health exchanges. Yesterday marked the official start of the health insurance marketplaces under Obamacare. Residents of most states can shop for plans at HealthCare.gov, but 17 states and Washington D.C. have their own websites for their health exchanges. The domain names selected by each state have no similarities. Some use .com, others .org, and still others .gov. Some use state abbreviations, others ... read more ...
Tue 28th June 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LivingSocial Discovers It Has Typosquatters - Company files several domain name disputes. Local deals site LivingSocial has finally discovered that it has typosquatters — and that there’s a relatively affordable way to get its domain names back. Earlier this month it filed its first domain name arbitration case, going against the Irish country code domain name LivingSocial.ie. Now it’s ramping up its efforts by filing three cases with National Arbitration Forum this week. Each case costs about $1500 ... read more ...
Tue 13th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft Gets Patent for “Cybersquatter Patrol” - Company granted patent for typosquatting and cybersquatting tools. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today granted Microsoft U.S. patent number 7,756,987 (pdf) for “Cybersquatter Patrol”. The patent is for a system of generating lists of typo and cybersquatted domains and peeling back the onion to determine their ownership and revenue source. It also refers to methods to block these cybersquatted domain names. An exemplary method includes providing a typographically ... read more ...
Wed 7th April 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CitizenHawk: Pulling a Sheets Off a “Typosquatting Recovery Firm” - New site watches a watchdog. One of the more controversial domain name companies is CitizenHawk. The company was founded in 2007 to help brands recover typos of their domain names. On behalf of clients, the company sends demand letters to registrants of typos and files UDRPs as well. When it recovers a domain, it has an agreement with the client that CitizenHawk may monetize the domain for a period of time. This is usually done through the client’s affiliate ... read more ...
Wed 10th March 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Typo? CanadaDrugs.com vs. CanadaRugs.com - Online pharmacy argues “Rugs” is merely a typo of “Drugs”. Take two of these andfire your lawyer in the morning. Here’s an interesting UDRP case from National Arbitration Forum. The company that runs CanadaDrugs.com, a popular online pharmacy, filed a complaint against the owner of CanadaRugs.com, which is a parked page featuring links for rugs. CanadaDrugs.com tried to argue that the owner of CanadaRugs.com was typosquatting: Complainant submits that ... read more ...
Wed 3rd March 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Edelman: Domainers Cause Harm, Add Little Value - Author of typosquatting report says domainers add little value, and questions the right to register large numbers of domain names. Cyber intelligence company Cyveillance has interviewed Benjamin Edelman, one of the authors of a recent report on typosquatting, and he has this to say about domainers: they cause harm and add little genuine value. It should be pointed out that Edelman is co-counsel in a lawsuit against Google and several other industry players over typosquatting. In ... read more ...
Wed 17th February 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Report: Google May Earn $497 Million a Year from Typosquatting - Study says typosquatting money big. But there may be a conflict of interest. A new study suggests that Google may earn $497 million a year from typosquatters targeting the 100,000 most popular .com sites on the web. Although I question some of the logic in the report and its appendices, and it is tainted by one of the authors being involved in a lawsuit against Google for typosquatting, the data is still fascinating. First, for the claim of $497 million in revenue ... read more ...
Mon 8th February 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verizon Settles Trademark Domain Name Case - Communications company settles lawsuit over typosquatting. Verizon has reached a tentative settlement with 2Cool Guys, LLC, Warren Weitzman, and Arnold Trebach over alleged trademark infringement from domain name typos. The communications company filed the complaint in October, alleging that the defendants parked typos of its popular Verizon trademark in order to earn pay-per-click revenue. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but two of the three ... read more ...
Mon 16th November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Linking Automated UDRP Filers CitizenHawk and Alias Encore - CitizenHawk founder created competing firm for typosquatting recovery. This morning I was reading a couple articles about FreeCreditReport.com’s win of over 1,000 domains in a single UDRP. (See DNW’s story here.) I was going to write a post about how so many blogs get information wrong, spreading falsities. These aren’t willful, but still hurt companies. In this case, I was reading an article at one of AOL’s blogs that said the company behind the cybersquatting, ... read more ...
Thu 17th September 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hypocrisy.com: How America’s Big Companies are a Biggest Cybersquatters - A look at how big companies have joined forces to cybersquat and how they justify it. In May 2007, I noticed something curious on a new Gateway desktop computer I purchased. When I mistyped a web address, my browser showed a page full of ads. That’s nothing new. But who profited from the page was. It wasn’t some small fry cybersquatter. It was Gateway. I later found out that Dell did the same thing. Both computer manufacturers had teamed up with search ... read more ...
Thu 4th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Editorial: How a Domain Industry Can Clean Itself Up - The domain business is a good business with a bad image. What can be done about it? Earlier today I read DNJournal’s weekly sales recap. There were some good sales, including RoomDividers.com at $75,000 (congratulations, Rick). But all of the good sales were overshadowed by a couple bad sales: Mozzilla.com for $40,000 and wwwMatch.com at $11,100. Neither of these domain names would stand a chance in UDRP challenges. Both of them are typos of famous web sites. ... read more ...
Tue 2nd September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New York Times Correctly Defines Cybersquatting - New York Times article offers up correct definition related to trademarks. It seems that the domain industry is quick to pounce on mainstream journalists who broadly define cybersquatting to include what many of us would refer to as domain investing — buying generic domain names. Perhaps we should pat a journalist on the back when he correctly defines “cybersquatting”, as New York Times writer Steve Lohr did in his August 31 article “A New Battle Is Beginning ... read more ...
Wed 13th August 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ITWorld: Typosquatting for Corporate Espionage - It seems that security wonks are finally catching up to the dangers of “typo” domains. If an article in ITWorld is any indication, security pros haven’t seen typosquatting as a big threat to businesses. They view it as a marketing/legal problem of someone profiting off the company’s trademark. The only security issue they see is phishing. But as the article points out, typo domains get their fair share of typo’d emails, too. Well, duh. This is something ... read more ...
Tue 11th March 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
5 Ways To Use DomainTools - If you aren’t using DomainTools, here are 5 ways to get started. DomainTools, a product of Name Intelligence, is perhaps the most powerful repository of data for domainers. Here are five ways I use the site: 1. Verify ownership of big ticket domains. When I’m buying an expensive domain I like to verify that the person I’m buying it from actually owns it. DomainTools’ historical whois tool lets you see the whois record for a domain name. This feature prevented ... read more ...
Sat 9th February 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Time Warner, Yahoo Team Up to Cybersquat - Companies join the ranks of big corporations redirecting “error” traffic. Time Warner’s Road Runner internet service has teamed up with Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) to typosquat on millions of unregistered domain names. The feature from the two companies is called “Web Address Error Redirect Service” and automatically sends web users to a page full of search ads if they type in a web address that does not exist. It appears to override customer’s own preferences ... read more ...