Who hasn’t mistyped a web address into their browser? Facrbook.com instead of facebook.com, gooel.com instead of google.com or dozens of other possible typos can, however, compromise your online security.
Aiming to cash in our typing mistakes, shady opportunists called typosquatters buy up these near-miss domain names and populate them with all sorts of questionable, and sometimes malicious, material.
A typo for a high-profile site such as Apple, Google, Twitter or Facebook, and you’re likely to find yourself on an adult site, fake versions of the page you’re looking for, “parked” domains, pages littered with ads, bait-and-switch schemes, and at other deceptive locations. Sophos.com has a thorough analysis of typosquatting and the security risks.
The best defense against typosquatters is, of course, accurate typing, so watch your p’s and q’s in 2012!
From Leo on January 09, 2012 :: 8:32 pm
With all due respect, you obviously know very little about the domain industry.
Typosquatting is not an illegal activity necessarily. Many domain investors buy domains like Sexi.com or Loove.com or AutoRentel.com, etc…. There is nothing wrong or illegal in registering these types of domains.
Just like any industry there are bad people and good people. The bad ones concentrate on trademarks, but it’s getting less and less as time goes on and those people are taken to court.
It’s always interesting to me how techies and developers know next to nothing about domain names, the domain industry, or even that domains are very valuable. Most can’t even get the basic definitions or terminology in the industry correct.
I suggest you and other techies educate yourselves before making a blanket judgment on all domain investors.
I also suggest to you and your readers to go read Domaining.com and http://dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm to start to get a cursory understanding of the domain market.
Peace!!!!!
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