In October 2001, the Federal Trade Commission took action over
Zuccarini's practice of registering internet domain names that were
misspellings of famous brands or names – known as typosquatting.
For example, he registered 41 variations on the name of Britney
Spears so that fans misspelling her name in their browser would be
taken to Zuccarini's sites.
The most likely candidates to misspell addresses are,
inevitably, children. Zuccarini had at one stage over 5,500 domain
names registered, including, teltubbies and bobthebiulder.
Once in a Zuccarini site, users were bombarded with a flurry of
pop-up windows displaying ads for goods and services ranging from
internet gambling to porn. In some cases, the legitimate web site
the consumer was attempting to access also was launched, so
consumers thought the hailstorm of ads to which they were being
exposed was from a legitimate web site.
And a Zuccarini site is very difficult to leave. In a practice
known as mousetrapping, programming code at the sites obstructed
surfers' ability to close their browser or to go back to the
previous page. Clicks on the 'close' or 'back' buttons caused new
windows to open, and more ads to appear – in the hope that the user
will click on one and transfer to the advertised site.
Zuccarini, according to the complaint, was paid a referral fee
of between 10 to 25 cents whenever a user moved on from his site to
one of the sites advertised. The scheme earned him up to $1 million
a year, and a huge number of complaints and civil court
actions.
These culminated in May 2002 when a US District Court
permanently barred Zuccarini from diverting or obstructing
consumers on the internet and from launching web sites or web pages
that belong to unrelated third parties. The court also barred him
from participating in advertising affiliate programmes on the
internet, and ordered him to pay almost $1.9 million in
damages.
But Zuccarini did not comply with the order and in September
2003 was charged under the new Truth in Domain Names statute.
This makes it a crime in the US to use "a misleading domain name
on the internet to deceive a minor into viewing material that is
harmful to minors on the internet." It carries a maximum sentence
of four years.
In December Zuccarini pled guilty to 49 charges under the domain
names law and on Thursday was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
