Posted by mikezillion at October 17th, 2007

I don’t generally object to the notion of typosquatting (apart from the fact that it is illegal in the United States). The practice involves registering a domain that a user might type in accidentally when misspelling the intended domain name, and using the space to market products that might be relevant to visitors of the intended site. It seems to me that it could be a slightly sleazy but perfectly legitimate form of targeted advertising. Where it gets creepy and sick is when folks target terms clearly aimed at children, such as “Teletubbies,” and put adult content on domains with minor spelling variations. I thought John Zuccarini got the hint from his $164,000 fine in 2003, but the Federal Government apparently wants him to stop using his typo domains to market non-adult products as well. The law is the law, until it is challenged and changed in a free market.