Typosquatting
A typo when entering the URL can lead to a cybersquatter webpage .
Typosquatting (to English : squat = occupied house , German loan transfer : typo domain ) is a form of cybersquatting that is based on the fact that a person inadvertently types in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI, i.e. the address of the website ) in a web browser incorrectly and is then led to an alternate page that belongs to the Typosquatter . Since Typosquatting is mostly operated by dubious webmasters, it is not uncommon that these pages then contain a competitive offer, but sometimes also unsuitable advertising or other undesirable content (e.g. pornography ). Under certain circumstances, Typosquatting can therefore infringe the trademark rights of the owner of the real domain.
Examples
- An example of dubious typing error domains can be demonstrated using www.wikipedia.org . If you make a mistake and enter the following: www.wiipedia.org , www.eikipedia.org , de.wikipedie.org , www.wikipdia.org and www.wilipedia.org , you get to websites that contain pop-ups and spyware without exception / Adware and advertising search engines included.
- There were at least two addresses on the website of the President of the United States, www.whitehouse.gov , that were similar to this URL but were not part of the official information provided by the President: www.whitehouse.com (formerly a political discussion site) and www.whitehouse.org ( a satirical site).
- A website of the Swiss politician Lukas Reimann saw the political campaign here-bleiben.ch, the proponent of the parliamentary resolution on the continuation of the free movement of persons and its extension to Romania and Bulgaria, was confusingly similar and used the domain dabeibleiben.ch .
- To prevent such free-riding, some companies register a number of web addresses with typographical errors and redirect them to the correctly spelled main website. For example, B. the entries www.goolge.de , www.googel.de , wwwgoogle.de and www.gogle.de all on www.google.de . Addresses with additional o show numerous domains registered by others .
- Similar phenomena also exist outside of the Internet: AT&T gave up the vanity telephone number "+ 1-800-OPERATOR" and replaced it with "+ 1-800-CALL-ATT". It seems as if many Americans misspelled "Operator", because competitor MCI Worldcom was able to acquire numerous new customers via "+ 1-800-OPERATER" (the final "R" is superfluous in both numbers).
- A recent example can be found in the struggles for economic and political reasons to vote in the Berlin referendum “End of secret contracts - we Berliners want our water back” . The Berliner Wasserbetriebe have secured numerous domains (.net, .com, .info) that are very similar to the original domain wollt-ihr-wissen.de of the initiators of the referendum. According to DENIC, "wollt-ihr-wissen.de" has existed since at least December 15, 2010, while the Berliner Wasserbetriebe registered their pages on January 21, 2011.
Web links
- TypoSquatting Web tool that lists possible typing error domains and their existence for a domain
- Free riders use known web addresses . ( Memento from March 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: Netzeitung as a snapshot from March 19, 2010, accessed on August 26, 2014
- various examples and related court decisions ( memento from January 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at domainreporting.de as a snapshot from January 27, 2012, accessed on August 26, 2014
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ LEO German-English dictionary "squat" , accessed on July 27, 200
- ↑ nn: Young parties are suing Lukas Reimann. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 23, 2008, accessed on April 23, 2010 .
- ↑ wollt-ihr-wissen.de
- ↑ whois.net zu wollt-ihr-wissen.net
