All global corporations are victims of typosquatters

Press release: 28/08/2007

The world's 500 biggest companies have all fallen victim to typosquatting, research carried out by law firm Pinsent Masons has found.

Typosquatting is a form of cybersquatting which relies on typographical errors made by internet users when inputting a company's website address into a web browser. When an individual accidentally enters an incorrect domain name, they may be led to an alternative website that displays adverts and profits from clicks on those ads. Profiting from misspelled words can be lawful, but not when trade marks are abused. The research found that brands belonging to every FTSE 100 and Fortune Global 500 company have been targeted by profiteers, who are believed to be earning millions of dollars a year from this practice.

John MacKenzie, an intellectual property expert at Pinsent Masons, said, “It used to be that trade mark infringement was relatively unusual. Rarely would another company deliberately set out to copy another brand. Now there are thousands of incidents, each using a very deliberate and carefully calculated approach.  The solution is to think like the typosquatters. Lawyers need to adopt technology to automate their processes, and then hit them where it hurts – in the pocket.”

The Top Ten companies in the world and their squatters:

1. Wal-Mart Stores:  wall-mart.com
2. Exxon Mobil:  Exxon-mobil.biz
3. Royal Dutch Shell: wwwroyaldutchshell.com
4. BP: wwwbp.com
5. General Motors: generalmotors.biz
6. Toyota Motor: tozota.com
7. Chevron: cchevron.com
8. DaimlerChrysler: daimlerhrysler.com
9. ConocoPhillips: comocophillips.com
10. Total: total.biz

Microsoft, a frequent victim of typosquatting, estimates that more than 2,000 domain names containing Microsoft trade mark terms are registered every day by people outside the company.  It believes that 75% of those are owned by professional domain name holders and that 25% of all Microsoft trade mark-related domains are held by cybersquatters. 

Microsoft research has found that a typosquatting site need only attract between one unique visitor every two days and two visitors a day to generate enough money to cover the annual domain fee.  Big cybersquatters register domains in massive clumps, holding hundreds of thousands or even millions at a time.

There is another growing trend which is making typosquatting even more profitable – domain tasting.  This is made possible by individuals registering a domain, trying it out and returning it after five days at no charge.  Designed as a way to help people who register an incorrect domain, this loop-hole is facilitating typosquatting. It is estimated that six million names are tied up at any one time in the five-day test period. Domain name pattern analysis company Name Intelligence said that 1.2 million names were registered every day during December 2006, compared to 7,200 in the same period the previous year.

Graham MacRobie, CEO of CitizenHawk.com, a technology company that detects and battles against typosquatters, said: "The fact that you can use highly automated systems to figure out which names are the best names to hold makes it considerably more economically viable to register huge numbers of them, drop most of them and keep the ones that are performing."

Ends.

For further information please contact:

Notes to Editors:

• All research carried out by Pinsent Masons using the services of CitizenHawk.com. See: www.citizenhawk.com
• The research was carried out in June 2007. The nature of typosquatting and domain tasting is such that sites appear and disappear on a daily basis. The above examples were accurate as at 25 July 2007.