Google Propping Up Typosquatting Biz?

An anonymous reader writes "Google is making oodles of cash placing ads on a vast sea of otherwise vacant Web sites that do little more than capitalize on misspelled domain name names, according to a story in today's Washington Post. From the story: 'Google Inc., which runs the largest ad network on the Internet, is making millions of dollars a year by filling otherwise unused Web sites with ads. In many instances, these ad-filled pages appear when users mistype an Internet address, such as BistBuy.com. This new form of advertising is turning into a booming business that some say is cluttering the Internet and could be violating trademark rules.'"

Re:WOw that's confusing

[2.7182]

This quote from the article might help:

This form of online advertising relies on "type-in traffic," the users who type the information they're looking for directly into the address bar of the Web browser instead of using a search engine to scour the Web. Industry analysts estimate that roughly 15 percent of all Web traffic originates this way.

Actually I don't see the big deal. This is nothing new.

salshdot.org

[hankwang]

Just tried some misspellings of slashdot.org...

• salshdot [salshdot.org] has a frame redirect to slashdot. Does not seem to be affiliated.
• .com [slashdot.com] redirects to .org.
• slsahdot [slsahdot.org] is a misspelling counter. :-)
• lsashdot.org, slashodt.org, slashdto.org, slashdot.net, slashdot.info, slshdot.org slshdot.org, slahdot.org, slasdot.org, slashot.org, slashdt.org, slashdo.org, salshdot.com - these are all typosquatters.
• slashdot.biz - is registered but hasn't even a domain parking site
• Typosquatters pay attention: slashdot.eu is not yet taken!

BistBuy.com?

[NynexNinja]

Hmm... bistbuy.com doesnt resolve. Also, the only reference on archive.org from bistbuy.com was in Apr 06, 2004: http://web.archive.org/web/20040406094329/http://w ww.bistbuy.com/ [archive.org] ... Not sure where they are getting their information from... Their two other examples, rearthlink.net and dearthlink.net, also don't resolve. At least their pages at archive.org offer a little more evidence: http://web.archive.org/web/20040331061435/http://w ww.dearthlink.net/ [archive.org]

Re:Are we calling it something else now?

[YouCanCallMeAl]

Cybersquatting [wikipedia.org] usually applies to registering the actual name (e.g. bestbuy.com) as opposed to misspelled variants.

Re:Are we calling it something else now?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Back in the olden days of 2004, we used to call it "cybersquatting." Kids these days and their crazy terminology. And their music.

Actually, I always thought cybersquatting was more like registering a bunch of potentially valuable domain names and doing nothing with them, until whoever would be rightfully interested in registering a name realizes it's taken and offers money to buy it back. It's a form of racket of course. Typosquatting is rather different.

Re:Are we calling it something else now?

[RevDobbs]

Cybersquatting is buying a real a domain with resell value; typosquatting is buying a domain that is spelled similar to a real domain and lapping up typo-induced hits.

Reporter needs more research

[radiogeak]

I think the reporter needs to do a little more research. If your a company who advertises on google, you have control over what kinds of searches match your add. If you find that a certain search term brings up your company more then you'd like, you can simply append a "-[search term]" to your access control list. Problem solved. The reporter uses BistBuy.com as a example. Could Best Buy be heading this report? Maybe Best Buy has some incompitent employees? Nooo, couldn't be ;)

Re:OMGLOL!!!! bistbuy was slashdotted!!!

[Raindance]

The Post claims, "Google Inc., which runs the largest ad network on the Internet, is making millions of dollars a year by filling otherwise unused Web sites with ads. In many instances, these ad-filled pages appear when users mistype an Internet address, such as 'BistBuy.com.'"

I also couldn't open bistbuy.com --

Here's what searching whois for bistbuy.com gave me

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net/ [internic.net]
for detailed information.

      Domain Name: BISTBUY.COM
      Registrar: DOMAINDOORMAN, LLC
      Whois Server: whois.domaindoorman.com
      Referral URL: http://www.domaindoorman.com/ [domaindoorman.com]
      Name Server: NS1.12GF6.COM
      Name Server: NS2.12GF6.COM
      Name Server: NS3.12GF6.COM
      Status: REDEMPTIONPERIOD
      Updated Date: 29-apr-2006
      Creation Date: 22-nov-2005
      Expiration Date: 22-nov-2006

Nothing appears to link bistbuy.com (if it ever was a valid destination) to Google.

I'm not convinced yet that this story is a smear job, but very little of their story appears to check out.

Re:Example

[clydemaxwell]

The likelihood of someone typing bastbuy.com is far lower than someone typing brstbuy.com (based on key positions); so it's no wonder that brstbuy.com is owned by bestbuy.com!

Re:OMGLOL!!!! bistbuy was slashdotted!!!

[grazzy]

Whats _really_ funny is this;
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies [google.com]

Especially this:
# No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed on any domain parking websites, pop-ups, pop-unders, or in any email.

Do no evil, do not put adsense on parked domains.. err, no, wait.

Re:is it really google?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/domainpark/ [google.com]

Re:OMGLOL!!!! bistbuy was slashdotted!!!

[fatgraham]

You've misread/notread the article. Google provides a specialised scheme for parking domains with ads.

http://www.google.com/domainpark/ [google.com]

which would *seem* like they're encouraging cybersquatting. Personally I don't can't think of what content-based website would get over 750k page visits and need to park their domain...

just like godaddy and tons of other domain registrars, its adverts on unused domains. except it's google, so it's more newsworthy.

Squatters

[Decimal]

Personally, I've been wondering why Google hasn't taken a bite out of squatters that sit on the obvious name of it's own services. Take a wander over to googlenews.com or googlecalendar.com.