VeriSign To Get Into The Typosquatting Business
from the funny-how-that-works dept
While John Zuccarini has finally been arrested for typosquatting, it seems that some big name businesses are looking to make quite a profit from the same basic idea (without the porn and the mousetrapping). Unfortunately, this article is only in the Wall Street Journal, with a paid subscription required. I've been looking for a subscription-free version all day, but no one has picked up on it, which is really unfortunate - because it's a big story. Already, Microsoft, in some sense, "typosquats" for anyone using Internet Explorer. If you put in an incorrect domain name, you're taken to an MSN search page. AOL apparently redirects users to an AOL search page (with ads). VeriSign is now realizing that this could be profitable and are testing a system to redirect typo domains to the correct domain automatically. They say it's just to make the user experience better, but the article wonders if they're going to try to profit off of it with advertisements. For the companies like Microsoft and AOL who are getting lots of traffic (and ad views) from typos, the idea of VeriSign swiping all that traffic doesn't make them happy. Other registrars (for .biz and .info, for instance) are apparently experimenting with the same sorts of redirections as well. Of course, if Microsoft and AOL complain, some might wonder what right they have to that traffic in the first place.
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