Microsoft Files New Cybersquatting Lawsuit

A Florida company has been charged with cybersquatting in a new lawsuit filed Wednesday. Twenty three domain names have been listed in the suit containing Microsoft's trademarks or misspellings of the names. The domain names which are registered to an entity called Domain Investments, include windoesmobile.com, wwwhotmajl.com, microsoft-games.com and zunedrivers.com. Many of the websites under the domains listed include advertising for various products and services. The suit is one of several typosquatting and cybersquatting suits filed by Microsoft. more»

Continued Controversy Over Google Ads on Typosquatted Domains

Regular readers of this site would be familiar with the ongoing legal battles involving the practice of typosquatting; the registration of misspelled domain names of well know brands with the intention of making a profit. Taking advantage of the fact that millions of online users mistype addresses of websites they intend to visit, typosquatters register common misspelled versions of popular sites and make money by displaying ads. Google's AdSense for Domains (AFD) program, often used for displaying such ads, has been particularly targeted by trademark owners which according to McAfee's SiteAdvisor, serves ads on more than 80% of typosquatting sites recently uncovered. more»

Recent Bank Merger Names Already Cybersquatted

Domain names related to recent bank mergers are already being hoarded and sold online reports BBC News. "Domain names for the merged Bank of America/Merrill Lynch as well as for Lloyds TSB/HBOS have been snapped up. As reports of Lehman Brothers' intent to sell itself first surfaced last Friday, cybersquatters had already spotted Barclay's, HSBC and Bank of America as potential buyers... Accordingly, barclayslehman.com, hsbclehman.com, hsbclehmanbrothers.com and bofalehman.com had been acquired." more»

CADNA Held London Online Brand Abuses and Internet Governance Education Forum

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) recently held its London Online Brand Abuses and Internet Governance Education Forum. The forum included companies from the US, UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Switzerland, with half of the attendees representing Global 500 companies. Forum attendees expressed concerns over issues such as online brand dilution and the often-ineffective governance of ICANN. more»

WIPO Reports Record Number of Domain Disputes in 2007

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has received 2,156 complaints alleging "abusive registration of trademarks on the Internet" in 2007, up 18 percent from 2006 and 48 percent more than the filings lodged in 2005. Most complaints came from the pharmaceutical, banking, telecommunications, retail and entertainment sectors. more»

Cybersquatting Rose 33 Per Cent Over 2007

According to recent reports, cybersquatting continued to be the most prevalent form of online brand abuse after a 33 per cent jump in the past year. The latest Brandjacking Index from MarkMonitor found significant drops in domain kiting and related pay-per-click fraud. This trend is attributed to aggressive legal actions by brand holders as well as increased scrutiny by domain name oversight agency, ICANN. However, phishing techniques and targets continued to evolve in 2007, and the report highlighted a 533 per cent increase in phishing attacks against the retail and services sector. more»

Email Address Typosquatting Posing Serious Leakage Threat

During the Black Hat DC 2008 security conference, security researchers urged companies and political organizations to put more effort into registering mis-typed versions of their primary domain names. In addition to protecting visitors to websites, this is also to prevent emails from accidentally leaking out... As part of an investigation, researchers from Symantec registered 124 domains consisting of common misspellings of the primary domains of candidates in the U.S. presidential election. As reported, in a strictly controlled experiment, a mail server was used to count the number of email messages sent to the misspelled domains, finding 1,121 connection attempts from 12 distinct IP addresses in a 24-hour period. more»

Dell's Lawsuit is Revealing Enormous Sums of Money Made by Domain Tasting and Parking Pages

In October, Dell sued a group of domain registrars, alleging the companies bought more than 1,100 domain names with trademark-infringing characteristics, such as "dellbatterrogram.com" in order to put advertising links on the pages... "Dell contends the defendants control some 1 million domain names, and believes they also have used at least 64 million other unique domain names." more»

Report on Best and Worst Anti-Phishing Domain Registrars

The performance of registrars in decommissioning domain names connected to fraud scams is all over the map. A "brandjacking" report released last month by MarkMonitor is the first to include a list of the top 10 best and worst lists of registrar performance in revoking domain names connected to phishing scams. more»

Law Expert Suggests Business-Funded Domain Name Protection Groups

John Mackenzie, an intellectual property and technology law expert at Pinsent Masons, says businesses should band together to tackle the multi-million dollar cybersquatting industry pro-actively. "What is really needed and what may occur is a trade organization pushing a policing function whose only purpose is to chase these people," said Mackenzie, saying that it could be similar to business-funded copyright protection groups such as the Business Software Alliance. more»

First in Domain Squatting Cases: Dell Charges Typosquatters as Counterfeiters

In further development of Dell's lawsuit, reported today on WebProNews: "Forget about trademark infringement; computer manufacturer Dell wants to make a statement in its lawsuit against domain registrars. A successful counterfeiting charge would entitle Dell to claim damages of up to a million dollars per violation, a substantial increase over the federal limit of $100,000 per domain infringement." more»

Dell Takes Domain Registrars to Court

Personal computer giant Dell Inc. is pursuing a major "cybersquatting" lawsuit against several companies that buy and sell domain names, alleging that the entities earned millions of dollars from Internet traffic intended for Dell and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. In a case quietly filed with the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in October and unsealed last Wednesday, Dell took aim at a stable of domain name registrars allegding that they are responsible for registering and profiting off of nearly 1,100 domains that were "confusingly similar" to Dell's various trademarks.  more»

Hackers Spreading Malicious Code Using Typosquatted Domains

Finjan Inc., a web security company, has released reports today on hackers and cyber-criminals using typosquatted domain names to infect visitors to legitimate websites and increase the lifecycle of cyber-attacks. Leveraging the similarity to legitimate and frequently used domain names is successfully enabling these attackers to go unnoticed by webmasters and security solution providers. more»

ICANN Investigating "Domain Name Front Running"

ICANN is investigating complaints that insider information is being used to snatch desired domain names before an individual or business can register them. The Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN termed the practice "domain name front running" and likened it to a stock broker buying or selling shares ahead of a client's trade, in anticipation of a movement in price. In the case of Internet addresses, many people who see a domain name available the first time they check find it already taken by the time they return to buy it. more»

Notorious John Zuccarini Charged Again for Typosquatting

Notorious typosquatter, John Zuccarini, who served pornographic advertisements on domains such as Bobthebiulder.com and teltubbies.com has been fined again by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. John Zuccarini has agreed to give up $164,000 in typosquatting revenue he is alleged to have raked in, the FTC said Tuesday in a statement. Five years ago, a federal court had barred Zuccarini from registering domains that are misspellings of legitimate brands... more»