Microsoft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains

blueZ3 writes "ZDnet is running a story on a new tool from Microsoft that aims to inform users when they reach 'typo domains'. Apparently, there's concern in Redmond that IE users are being exploited by companies running ad farms on typo domains. The tool uses an automated search routine to look for domains with particular types of typographical errors--transpositions, incorrect TLDs, missing letters--and then adds the domains to a database. The eventual goal (though this isn't clear from the article) seems to be something akin to Verisign's URL redirecting, where typo domains are blocked."

Argh! Dupe!

[RobertB-DC]

I thought for sure that there would be enough Subscribers send email to the DaddyPants address that this one would be yanked.

Well, for reference, here are all the +4 and +5 comments from last week's installment of this story, so you karma whores can repost them and hope the moderators don't see through your ruse...

Microsoft 'URL Tracer' Hunts Typosquatters [slashdot.org]

Meanwhile, you can blame me for jinxing it.

Ghost Article: M'soft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains [slashdot.org]

Re:first one up:

[ch-chuck]

have you every tried www.goggle.com ?
It's pretty bad. A popup got around firefox, automatically starts a file download gsetup.exe, etc.

not just typos

[sloths]

I really hate domain squatters. It's not just typos, but just cool domains that could be used for a legitimate site are just ads. IE the.com, yeah.com, sloths.com... Actually one time I was snooping around the directories of sloths.com looking for contact info to see if I could buy the domain when I came across a sql.txt file that told me their passwords.

I've emailed Google several times about this [google.com] awful program. I hate all forms of advertising, but it just makes me mad to see cool domains used for illegitimate purposes. People say it's just another business, but they are stupid.

Re:Sounds great, but may be damaging to some

[Ardx]

I would the way they will deal with typos is very similar to the phishing filter in IE7. And if a site is a valid site rather than a typo and is mistakenly marked as a typo farm, you will be able to email them and have them verify your site is not a typo farm and they will remove it. A very similar thing happened to my business site. The phishing filter marked my contact page as a phishing site, I emailed them and very quickly it was no longer reing reported as a phishing site. Keep in mind, while it may be amusing to think of MS marking google.com as a typo farm, I would expect them to be very careful with the major sites because they are sure to not want the negative publicity to overshadow this nice attempt to protect users.

Re:first one up:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's my (Score: 0, duh) tidbit for the day:

Whenever I'm unsure of the spelling of a domain name, I hit my google toolbar bookmark and type the name of the company as a query. Most of the time the top link is the site I'm looking for, but I've been surprised quite a bit lately. Anyway, once I decide a site is worth going back to I just add it to my bookmarks; however, recently I've been lazy... so lazy in fact that I've accidentally typed google in my query at least half a dozen times. :(

I must be missing something

[trawg]

Aside from phishing attempts, which is a legitimate concern (but imo should be addressed by the company that is getting spoofed), what is the big deal about typo squatting?

I enter in a lot of my URLs by hand. I frequently make typos because I was typing them too fast. I see a page that isn't what I was expecting or that is obviously a link farm, I just re-type the URL.

Or I use bookmarks. Or I use Google.

Re:first one up:

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a popup:

meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10;URL=http://spybouncer.com/gsetup.exe"

Re:first one up:

[Inigo Montoya]

I've watched my wife surfing in the past, and when *anything* popped-up she clicked ok; I freaked one time as she clicked 4 pop-ups out of the way before I could cross the room. I gave her a lecture about spyware, malware, etc. and she was all open-eyed and "OMG, really?" and now she calls me whenever something pops up on her screen.

The point is, many, many people are not computer savvy and regularly just accept the pop-up, click it to get rid of the "annoyance factor", and get on with whatever they were trying to do.

This kind of stuff catches a lot of people, and the creators know it.

Re:Misspelled domain data

[ArtStone]

Moderately good chance it DID successfully install an activeX control even without your consent.

A neighbor of mine made that typo year or two ago and her Windows98 computer quickly filled up with adware/spyware.

Making it more obnoxious is if you have the history feature turned on, when you type go.... it will "guess" you wanted goggle com rather than google.com once you have visited the wrong site... (until you flush the history)

Where is Elliot Spitzer when you need him?