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Typosquatting involves buying a misspelled version of a popular domain name to attract visitors who make typographical errors. Typosquatters can redirect to the original domain, turn it into a link or ad farm, or trick visitors. It is not necessarily illegal, but fraudulent or misleading use can be prosecuted.
Typosquatting is buying an incorrect version of a popular domain name in order to attract visitors who make typographical errors when entering web addresses. This practice is a form of cybersquatting. Cybersquatters purchase domain names with the aim of trading on the popularity and reputation of a brand or company, and in some cases have even managed to snap up domain names before a parent company has a chance to buy them.
In the case of typosquatting, people take advantage of the fact that there are numerous potential misspellings of a domain that can arise when people type in a hurry. If millions of people are visiting a website and even a small fraction make mistakes when manually entering domain names, a typosquatter can profit. Typosquatters can buy domains with transposed letters, missing letters or extra letters, such as wiesgeek.com, wisgek.com or wisege4ek.com.
There are a number of things a typosquatter can do with a domain. One option is to simply use the site as a redirect to the original domain, a trick used by some companies that buy some common misspellings of their domain names to cover their bases. Another option is to turn the domain into a link or ad farm, hoping that visitors will click on the content and generate revenue. Some creative typosquatters have used their bad domains for the purpose of political commentary or satire directed at the owner of the correctly spelled domain.
A more problematic practice occurs when typosquatters attempt to trick visitors. The typosquatting site can be designed to look a lot like the site the user intended to reach, causing the user to think they’ve come to the right place. Users could reveal confidential information, expose themselves to malware, or otherwise put themselves in danger. Some typosquatters have targeted children with their websites by purchasing variations on domains commonly used by children, a practice that pertains to law enforcement agencies.
Under the law, typosquatting is not necessarily illegal, although it could potentially be prosecuted under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 in the United States. If a typosquatter is clearly using a domain name for fraudulent or misleading purposes, the site may be considered a violation of the law. However, sites that simply exploit a spelling mistake to send a political message or even run ads aren’t necessarily illegal. While some companies are aggressive towards typosquatting, the myriad possible variations on a domain name mean that typosquatters can give up on the site in question and move on to another typo.
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