Typosquatting 154
plashdoy writes: "Oh what a tangled Web we weave: ZDNN article on Typosquatting. Don't you hate it when stuff like this is more profitable than your honest efforts?" I have no problem with typo squatting as a whole, but there are a dozen Slashdot typo sites, one of which frames Slashdot with a 2nd banner ad. Now I don't care ... but this fools about 1 person every 2-3 days, and they flame me for selling out and doing something so horrible as framing Slashdot for extra ad space. So I guess typo sites that frame the site are pretty slimey, but as long as the typo site provides a link to the correct site, I'm totally cool with 'em.
slashdit (Score:2)
Re:Hotmail and Hotmale ain't the same thing (Score:1)
Re:you know... (Score:2)
Why on earth should I bother bookmarking slashdot, when it takes far much effort to use the bookmarks-button, than to just type 'slashdot.org' ?
You only show that you probably have a patethic 400keys-per-minute typingspeed.
--
Re:OrangoTango (Score:1)
Re:Typos' (Score:1)
Of course, it's college... and everyone had a good laugh...
The best qoute from that quarter, from my professor: "I only visit porn sites to make sure that they are within the law." Yeah right
I eat dog. Free DVDs [opendvd.org]. Horray!
Re:The Evil Potential for this (Score:1)
You mean like the scam Rahoule described in Comment 156 [slashdot.org] to this article?
Re:What typo site? (Score:1)
That's a typical example of bailing out at the first sign of danger if I ever saw one...
But still, can't blame them, they probably got alle the income they wanted from the site the second it got posted on
Re:New TLDs... (Score:1)
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:2)
Do you know exactly what the address of your local McDonalds is? I don't. But I know the sign on the front says 'McDonalds' and generally what its appearance is.
A McDonald's street address would correspond to a website's IP address. NOT its DNS name.
How many people make typos? (Score:1)
For every one who flames, there are probably several who never notice and several more who do but don't get worked up about it.
You can probably get a few hundred hits a day off of the ineptitude of others. Maybe they'll learn to use bookmarks someday (or just make
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:2)
most disturbing typosquatting I've stumbled upon.. (Score:1)
I was attempting to search at google.com [google.com] and instead I accidentally typed in gogole.com [gogole.com]. This sends me to Bill Gate's personal website at microsoft.com, framed in an ad. Weird, eh?
Even stranger, I don't seem to remember an ad the first time I went there...
Don't forget whitehouse.com (Score:1)
Re:What typo site? (Score:1)
Re:Typos' (Score:2)
Re:you know... (Score:2)
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
The url is a typo . .that's a *little funny ? ? ? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
It doesn't bother me. (Score:1)
Now it's time for the obligatory go-at.cx link... (Score:1)
arg (Score:1)
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:1)
If they are loading it in a frame, then Taco owes them a portion of the banner proceeds. :-)
typosquatting... clever...? (Score:1)
Microsfot.com (Score:1)
Sometimes i like typosquatters...
http://www.microsfot.com/ [microsfot.com]
Re:Phone companies did this long ago (Score:1)
www.gogole.com (Score:1)
Bill Gates personally overseeing the vaccination of third world countries to protect them from Linux!
use javascript to prevent that.. (Score:1)
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:1)
However, if you were to set up mcdonalsd.com and fill the site with porn banners or something, McDonald's wouldn't have a leg to stand on. There would be no confusing your porn-banner website with McDonalds' real site.
Shaun
Re:slsahdot.org (Score:1)
(I knew someone was gonna catch that
Kills frame-squatting dead. (Score:5)
function changePage()
{
if(self.parent.frames.length != 0)
self.parent.location="/index.html";
}
Remember TCBY? (Score:1)
Re:What typo site? (Score:1)
anyway... i hope nobody is terribly offended by this.
DavesClassics and PayPal (Score:2)
I used to frequently visit an emulation site called Dave's Classics (www.davesclassics.com). I had to be very careful typing in the address because if I typed:
DavesClassics is now known as VintageGaming.com [vintagegaming.com].
I remembered someone on Slashdot mentioning that PayPal had a problem with a site typosquatting on paypaI.com and grabbing people's credit card numbers. (The lowercase 'l' and uppercase 'I' are almost indistinguishable in some fonts...)
Re:www.salshdot.org (Score:1)
stealing content? wtf are you talking about. Since when is a frameset stealing content. It isn't going to a pretend slashdot server or anything like that.. it just is slashdot for lazy people like me, who still type teh instead of the in word processors...
Doesn't sound so evile (Score:1)
This doesn't sound so bad to me. If the site is particularly misleading so the person doesn't realize he has landed on the wrong site, that might be grounds to sue. Other than that?
I don't see anything wrong with it.
Dlugar
Early typosquatting (Score:1)
The very earliest case I now of is a guy who was jealous of his brother's success. So he set up his own town and put signs on the road pointing the other direction, leading to Reme.
What typo site? (Score:1)
What about parody? (Score:1)
Just had one today (Score:1)
Be sure to check out INVESTER.com (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:1)
Re:Typos' (Score:1)
The typosquatters included typo'd version of washingtonpost.com, yahoo.com, and microsoft.com. (The last one surprised me a bit. You'd think that microsoft would have accidentally acquired all of the typos around their name...)
Like I said, most of these were advertising sites, shilling various banner ads and the like. A couple were porn sites, but not very many compared to the total list.
Kierthos
Re:money. (Score:1)
--
Mews sites (Score:2)
See foxmews.com [foxmews.com], cbsmews.com [cbsmews.com], and nbcmews.com [nbcmews.com].
Re:slsahdot.org (Score:1)
Sometimes typosquatting is good (Score:1)
I for instance miss a search engine on Slashdot which would be able of searching through ***all*** submissions and comments ever posted (I don't even know whether Slashdot keeps all submissions and comments). It would also be cool if the search engine would have multiple options like threshold for comments etc.
Just an idea
the skunk
How to prevent typosquatting (Score:1)
New TLDs... (Score:3)
-Chris
"Hotnail" prompts for login. (Score:1)
location.replace() - Please! (Score:1)
These "frame breaking" scripts have been around for at least the last three years (that's when they became popular, anyway), but most of them cause problems for the poor web surfer. If you simply assign a new value to the location attibute it effectively disables the "back" button on the browser. This is because it creates a new element in the history array, so if you try to go back where you came from, it still remembers the last page you put in the frame and executes its javascript again - sending you forward to the "unframed" state.
Use the location.replace(URL) method instead; it replaces the current history entry, essectially forgetting that you were ever there. The back button still works, and everyone is happy. Unless, of course, they actually wanted to go back to slashd0t.0rg...
Re:slsahdot.org (Score:1)
while serving slsahdot.org
error while executing
deferred at
MLDBM::Serializer::deserialize('MLDBM::Serializer
MLDBM::FETCH('MLDBM=HASH(0x858a080)', 'main.lastmod') called at
HTML::Mason::Utils::access_data_cache('cache_file
HTML::Mason::Request::cache('HTML::Mason::Request
HTML::Mason::Commands::mc_cache() called at
HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Compone
HTML::Mason::Request::comp1('HTML::Mason::Request
HTML::Mason::Request::comp('HTML::Mason::Request:
eval {...} called at
HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request:
HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request_1('HTM
eval {...} called at
HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML:
HTML::Mason::handler('Apache=SCALAR(0x8587fb4)') called at
eval {...} called at
HTML::Mason::Request::__ANON__('deferred at
Carp::confess('deferred') called at
MLDBM::Serializer::deserialize('MLDBM::Serializer
MLDBM::FETCH('MLDBM=HASH(0x858a080)', 'main.lastmod') called at
HTML::Mason::Utils::access_data_cache('cache_file
HTML::Mason::Request::cache('HTML::Mason::Request
HTML::Mason::Commands::mc_cache() called at
HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Compone
HTML::Mason::Request::comp1('HTML::Mason::Request
HTML::Mason::Request::comp('HTML::Mason::Request:
eval {...} called at
HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request:
HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request_1('HTM
eval {...} called at
HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML:
HTML::Mason::handler('Apache=SCALAR(0x8587fb4)') called at
eval {...} called at
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:1)
IHMO, here's the ranking from ok to sleezy:
Re:Reminds me... (Score:1)
--
You don't become a failure until you are content with being one.
This reminds me... (Score:2)
And that's why the phone police on the TV ads now tell you to dial 1-800-CALL-ATT.
Re:you know... (Score:1)
. ._ _ .__. ___ ___ ._ _. _.. _. .. .
Re:What typo site? (Score:2)
Meanwhile you have just generated additional revenue for them, as a horde of interested Slashdotters (like me) type in this URL to see what shows up.
Personally, while its kinda sleazy and I sure as hell would not be likely to engage in typosquatting, I do think its inventive. This attitude will survive until such time as someone start typosquatting one of my websites of course :)
IMHO: Most interesting Slashdot typo site (Score:1)
Re:Kills frame-squatting dead. (Score:5)
<script language="JavaScript"><!--
// Break out of frames! I'm the tops!
if (window.location != window.parent.location) {
window.parent.location = window.location;
}
//--></script>
If you want a nav-bar, that's why your browser has that little toolbar at the top of the screen. Or you can implement a floating bar that sits in it's own trimmed-down browser window. Then you won't run afoul of frame-busting scripts.
-=Julian=-
So how would you fix it? (Score:3)
For example, if I owned frito.com and you owned fritto.com [m-w.com], a perfectly legitimate word (maybe a chef's site, for example), is that a violation?
How would you quantify this in a way NSI and others could enforce? It seems like any solution would require subjective review by a committee, and that means that it would be political, capricious, and subject to manipulation like the WTO.
Personally, I think the internet advertising market will change in coming years, and just serving up a banner won't make you the 5 cents a click that people claim to receive now. This will make running a "typosquatting" site less lucrative. I also see no difference between "typosquatting" and perfume knockoffs, rolex watch knockoffs, kit cars, and other sorts of ways of leeching off a major brand name. It's a healthy part of how capitalism works.
The only big problem I see is intentional deceit, such as the recent problem with bank of america [arbforum.com] where someone was trying to deceive people into sending in personal info. We have existing fraud laws to cover that.
So, unless someone is trying to trick you into thinking that they are really bankofamerica.com or slashdot.org, I don't have a problem with "typosquatting".
Reminds me... (Score:1)
http://www.doanload.com [doanload.com]
into the browser.
--
You don't become a failure until you are content with being one.
Re:you know... (Score:1)
Oh wait...that was me.
-A.P.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
TO say the least (Score:2)
-------
CAIMLAS
Re:Typos' (Score:1)
Re:Phone companies did this long ago (Score:1)
I think all of this has gone too far, domain names should be first come first served. Not quick enough to get the domain you wanted, too bad, think of a new one or attempt to buy it off the person who did register it for whatever they want to charge you for it.
Re:money. (Score:1)
INCORRECT (Score:1)
My Dad ws one of the owners of TCBY, and I mean the chain, not just a couple of stores. So I've never heard this story and doubt it's validity, particularly considering that TCBY always did stand for "THE COUNTRY'S BEST YOGURT" and has nothing to do with the question of whether or not the product is actually a yogurt-derivative.
So there you have it.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Oh, really? Banner ads are not that different than ads on television and in magazines: mass exposure of a name or brand, grouped around content that hopefully has a higher density of your target audience than average. Name recognition and image building is extremely important to become a successful product. There might be a few exceptions, but you didn't really think that Coca-Cola or Microsoft would be as big as they are without the ads, do you? Billions of dollars a year are put into advertisement, and trust me, most companies would not do that if it didn't boost sales.
Witness the frequent "AOL keyword" phrase in radio ads.
The "AOL keyword" namespace isn't in any way bigger than the DNS namespace. If it becomes popular as an alternative for domains, you get the same problems as you find now with domains. Except that it's all in the hands on one company. You won't get many domainsquatters, no, you have one: AOL, and it's got *everything* squattable. (It would be the same for any other company trying to make such "name spaces"). Oh, and you don't really think that Ford Motors will say, "we already have ford.com, we don't mind if someone else uses 'AOL keyword: Ford'", do you?
Domain names should not be typed in by hand very often. Use bookmarks and search engines.
Well, to put something in a bookmarks file, you first have to find the address somehow. Search engines are nice, but not an alternative. Could you imagine a radio ad for Xyzzy soap saying "Visit out web site, go to your favourite search engine, search for 'xyzzy soap', and find us in the huge list of returned matches". No self respecting marketing person is going to fall for that - nor will the public accept it. Besides, search enignes fall for the "typo trap" as well; and you don't even need different domain names for that. Also, Yahoo was mentioned as one of the companies with typo sites.... you really thing that using a search engine to go to yahoo is going to solve that typo problem?
I forsee a day when there are multiple orthogonal online namespaces akin to Yahoo, and URLs will be passed around as "http://namespace/name/restofurl/"
Well, that's how it all started. But nowadays, everything needs to have its own domain name - and it isn't just companies. Just look at the postings with this story, how many people here are saying "I have .(com|net|org)". Just like big companies, geeks want their own domain too. It's all vanity and the phobie to type punctuation characters.
My favorite bakery has a site at SantaCruz,CA/Buttery (by city)" which would translate to http://santacruz.ca.us/buttery/
Cute, but since Henry Ford mass produced cars (and before that, railroads), we no longer live in a society where people spend 364 days a year in their own village. The world, and especially the electronic world is global. Geographic domains don't work in general, and any attempt to do more than two-letter toplevel domains has been a failure. And even two-letter domains don't really work well. Or do you really think all the .to and .cx domains are located in the Pacific? And then there's the obvious problem of people and companies relocating... Would you want to have your email address change when you move?
-- Abigail
Re:typosquatting... clever...? (Score:1)
Typosquatting rules! (Score:1)
Re:What typo site? (Score:2)
In my opinion, this is plagiarism. They are plagiarising Slashdot to raise money for themselves or a content provider. If someone was doing this to a commercial website I owned, I would be seeing lawyers and issuing "Cease and Desist" notices very quickly.
I think the best way of thwarting it tho is through Javascript. Something like:
if (top.location != self.location) top.location = self.location;
--
my all time fav (Score:2)
...instead of the news service, you get "free web based email" -- just enter your uname and password.
who would have guessed the web could make our lives so simple?
ICANN? (Score:3)
What's the problem? (Score:2)
the alternative would be that any given trademark etc. would include permutated characters and similar words.
Any name hard enough to make it possible to spell wrong by _anyone_ , i.e more than 4 characters, is just a bad name for the net.
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:2)
Re:Kills frame-squatting dead. (Score:2)
OrangoTango (Score:2)
at the top of the screen. Or you can implement a floating bar...
I beleive there's a company called [orangatango.com]
OrangoTango that's working ona product to
do some of these things and more. Browser/Location independant
bookmarks, preferences, etc... available anywhere, from any
browser... there must be more to it if you simply
implement these by making floating js bars.
Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:5)
I have a feeling that if I went out on the street, put up a green sign with silver arches, and called it MacDonalds and started selling chicken sandwiches, that the company that has sold Billions and Billions would have proper recourse to land on me with a ton of lawyers. But here in cyberspace, it's *just* a typo?
I don't think so. And even if it is, when folks like the 800 pound gorilla from Redmond get into the act, it won't stay that way long, DOJ lawsuits aside. And for once, I think that's as it should be. www.whitehouse.com indeed, don't try that not-a-link unless you're 18.....
--
That Isaac Hayes, he's one baaaad mutha...(Hush yo mouth!)
I'm just talkin' 'bout Chef! (We can dig it!)
Re:not totaly realted but (Score:2)
Typos' (Score:2)
slsahdot.org (Score:2)
slsahdot.org [slsahdot.org]
No money in it, of course, I just got tired of getting a DNS lookup error everytime I misspelled it that particular way.
I hate that (Score:3)
What is this world coming to?
Rights in misspellings (Score:2)
As a business, "typosquatting" probably ranks with standing around with a "will work for food" sign, so it's not going to go beyond the joke level.
Re:What typo site? (Score:2)
Ian
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:2)
A closer analogy would be if Burger King set up a store at 123 N. Main St., while McDonald's was at 123 S. Main. St.. People know where they are, they just got the address wrong. The misdialed phone number analogy is also good...
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:2)
No, your analogy is imperfect...
a real analogy would be someone opening a store that looked exactly (or almost exactly) like McDonalds, and called it MacDonalds (notice the extra 'a'). THAT's a typo analogy.
Just for shits and giggles (Score:2)
www.widnows.com [widnows.com]
www.micorsoft.com [micorsoft.com]
www.gooogle.com [gooogle.com]
www.exciite.com/ [exciite.com]
www.microsofy.com [microsofy.com]
www.hotmaik.com [hotmaik.com]
Here's a funny one:
www.netwroksolutions.com [netwroksolutions.com]
And
www.networksloutions.com [networksloutions.com] - which redirects to http://www.networksolutiond.com/, and provides a link to http://www.networksolutions.com/
You can probably come up with a LOT more than this list, just by entering misspelled domain names. Hell, it worked for me, and this is probably just a tiny sample of what's out there.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Typos' (Score:2)
The ass that got fired was warned multiple times about his browsing and chose to continue. He had a pretty sizeable collection on his harddrive, looked like the majority came from e-mail attachments he was exchanging with his buddies. I couldn't understand that one. Guess he was pretty compulsive about it.
Right after this clown was fired, a memo went out reminding everyone of the policy and that everything was logged and sniffed. Guess a bunch of people were warned and cleaned up their act since. I'm no prude, like to see some skin myself once in a while but it completely escapes me why someone would need to do this while at work.
Re:Kills frame-squatting dead. (Score:2)
Re:Typos' (Score:2)
Mozilla bug 29346 [mozilla.org] has been futured, so I'm afraid we might have to live with this problem for a while longer (the multiple popup ads, not the lack of porn).
--
Re:What typo site? (Score:3)
==
Re:Kills frame-squatting dead. (Score:3)
I actually have a page on my own web site (not for external browsing, www.arbutus.cx/navbar/ [arbutus.cx]) that has a narrow (75px) left sidebar frame where I can navigate between my favorites. Easier for me that having to drag around my favorites whereever I go.
CNN likes to kill my happy little side frame, which is a reason why I usually go to it last. But I guess CNN would have more "frame linking" problems (especially linking directly to articles). I wouldn't be happy is Slashdot did this (the first link on my side navbar), but I guess I could live with it.
you know... (Score:2)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
If there was a model of the most vague story... (Score:2)
What's he referring to, sites like Slashgrits?
Re:Typos' (Score:2)
Re:Kills frame-squatting dead. (Score:2)
Another thing I really hate is the opposite of this -- reframing. The site on which it bothers me the most is SecurityFocus. Who in the world thought that reframing a BugTraq post that I link to along with 7 other frames, putting into a tiny little frame and making it unreadable, is convenient? I ended up using other BugTraq archives.
--
Re:Making bucks off someone else's rep (Score:2)
--
Making 1st amendment go bye-bye (Score:2)
Let's not get into the mess that would happen if I run doglovers.com and some other dog lover couldn't get that domain so they made their own legitimate dog site called dogloverz.com. Or maybe he's busy working on his site and has only some opening HTML and a few test ads. I'd rather not have brat netizens calling "typo" site and demaning pulled domains. Outlawing typo sites would be a great way for losers like GW Bush and Jack T. Chick to get rid of parody sites named after them. Go ahead and try to define "typo" site.
Typo sites should be kept alive and well and if you feel they're using your content without permission (framings) that doesn't mean all typo domains should be abolished it means you have a problem with one specific webmaster who is actively trying to fool people.
As far as linking to the "real" site, thats just as much bullshit as the rest. That could fool the user into thinking that slashbot.org has an association with slashdot.org. You're better off without them, eventually they should realize that hey this isn't the place I wanted to go.
What you should be doing is less whining and more hustling, inform the ad providers and the company that they're advertising that you saw their ad in an unfair fashion and will think twice before shopping there and prefer the honest admanship (this isn't a word or is it?) of their competitors.
Then again I don't see most ads, click my homepage to get a small but effective ad blocking hosts file.
Re:you know... (Score:2)
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Re:slsahdot.org (Score:2)
You're using WINDOWS. yuck...
--
Re:What typo site? (Score:2)