CitizenHawk Eyes Typosquatters

by the source | April 16, 2007 at 01:05 pm

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The last sentence of this article is the best, a quote from in-house Verizon counsel Sarah Deutsch, '.......more energy should be devoted to solving the problem
at its source: registry companies that allow users to purchase
fraudulent domains.' I am glad she finally "gets" this - it's only taken 9 years. The registrants doing this are clearly slime but the registry and registrars profit from it (always have) and have little incentive to actually do anything about it, other than to go through the motions sufficient to placate the IP community. The IP community has always hoped that ICANN, which is supposed to oversee the plumbing of the Internet and not the business of, would police its TMs for them but that impotent organization can only do so much, which is very little.

Swooping down on cybersquatters who profit from brand name misspellings.
April 16, 2007

By Leah Messinger

On the web, misspelling spells big business for typosquatters.

It happens when someone buys a domain name that closely resembles a recognized brand or trademark, save for a few key intentional typos. So, while Amazon owns the domain amazon.com, typosquatters have purchased web sites amazan.net and 1mazon.com.

“On the Internet, [trademark infringement] is happening millions of times a day,” said Ari Master, COO of CitizenHawk, which offers digital brand management tools.

So, the Aliso Viejo, California-based company is swooping into a nettlesome, burgeoning niche. Today the company launched Typosquasher, an on-demand service that combats online trademark infringement and other cyber crimes that stem from typosquatting.

Typosquasher helps companies search for trademark violators and then take legal steps, such as sending warning letters to the domain name owners or the domain hosts. The Maveron-funded company said it has provided its beta service to

“If retailers had the resources, they would have tackled [this problem] a long time ago,” said Forrester senior analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

Capitalizing on Typos

A 2006 Forrester study estimated that 38 percent of the time, consumers type URLs incorrectly into their browsers. Many sites capitalize on this shortcoming, making money by lead generation and through Google and Yahoo ad sales, for example.

Cybersquatting expert David Steel said he has encountered defendants who have registered as many as 16 million domain names similar to common brand names. He added that such infringement is enforceable under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999. But to hold typosquatters accountable, “the hard part is really finding them.”

Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel for Verizon, said typosquatting is a serious problem for her company, which has not tried Typosquasher. Nevertheless, Verizon is likely to take legal action against a typosquatter early next week. Ms. Deutsch said she has located a company that owns domain names using 1,300 variations of the Verizon brand.

Ms. Deutsch said that locating infringers and then sending warning notices is not a viable option. “If you’re the trademark owner, you’re going to be forced to send takedown notices day after day after day, with no resolution to the problem,” Ms. Deutsch said.

She suggested that more energy should be devoted to solving the problem at its source: registry companies that allow users to purchase fraudulent domains.