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The Typo Millionaires

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the slsshdot-and-slashdit dept.

theodp writes "Slate's Paul Boutin reports on the sordid history of the oldest scam on the Internet. For almost as long as the Web has existed, there's been a thriving economy of sites, services, and software vying to grab you as soon as your mistype a URL. Studies estimate that 10-20% of all hand-entered URLs are mistyped, adding up to at least 20 million wrong numbers per day, helping to enrich the likes of porn purveyors, ISP's, Paxfire, Microsoft and VeriSign."

1 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. sad that people like that make $ while legit dies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    my friend has a site that needs traffic today - now - he lost all his money on building this, and he's been scammed by a psycho who had up tied up in court for a year on bogus stuff that cost a fortune. i don't know how to do this, but i'm trying to get him traffic today - could literally save everything if he gets it for one day. Really sad to see how cheaters like the guys in the article with typo urls make money, while legit guys suffer. Any way you can help spread the word would be awesome. Site is http://www.ionthunder.com TIA everyone.