Sins of The Internet: Typosquatting

A while ago, my wife asked me where the white pages were located so she could find a phone number. I rpelied that we didn't have white pages anymore as we could use the internet. There were plenty of sites which allows you to enter the name and address of someone to get their phone number.

I sat down smugly at my monitor and typed in 411.com, at least that's what I thought I typed. Actually, my fingers hit the "1" key too often, and I got 4111.com - and a pornographic site popped up on the screen. (This was several months ago - since that time 4111.com has obviously been shut down as nothing comes up anymore).

I'm sure by now most everyone knows that typing whitehouse.com into your address line does not bring up the United States Whitehouse web site. Instead you are directed to a, you guessed it, pornographic site.

Typos do not always lead to pornographic sites. Mistyping a URL might also take you to a banner farm or a portal, designed to make someone money every time you click a link or even simply view a banner.

This is called typosquatting, and it is simply the practice of purchasing domain names which match typing errors which are commonly made. The examples are almost infinite - just think of the number of ways that Yahoo.com or Microsoft.Com can be misspelled and you've got the idea. Now multiply that by the vast number of successful sites, and you will begin to understand how many combinations there are.

So how does this work? Well, someone sits down and thinks of a popular site. Now he will get out a piece of paper and write down all of the misspellings that he can think of for the URL. There might be a half dozen and there might be hundreds. It just depends upon the name of the site.

Find your favorite whois site and see if the misspelling has been previously purchased by someone. If not, you add it to a list and purchase it when you get a chance. If so, you determine when the expiration date of the domain is, then set a reminder to look a month later to see if it has been renewed. If not, you can purchase it at that time.

Is this illegal? It's only against the law if you infringe upon a trademark - then it is called cybersquatting and yes, that can land you in court. So, yes, you need to be careful if you are engaging in typosquatting. But if you are careful you can get away with it and make some money on careless typers.

Is is unethical? Of course, it's highly unethical. You see, a typosquatter is draining clicks from a legitimate website. Generally, legitimate websites are created by dozens or hundreds (or even thousands) of skilled people for the intention of selling a product. These sites cost millions of dollars and are heavily promoted. 

A typosquatter is a bottom-feeder who survives on the crumbs which fall out of the mouths of other animals. It may not be illegal, but it certainly is not acceptable.