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Google Wins 'Typosquatting' Dispute
JeiFuRi writes "The National Arbitration Forum has awarded Google the rights to several web addresses such as googkle.com, ghoogle.com, and gooigle.com, alleging that Sergey Gridasov of St. Petersburg, Russia, had engaged in 'typosquatting.' Business Week comments that Gridasov relied on typographical errors to exploit the online search engine's popularity so computer viruses and other malicious software could be unleashed on unsuspecting visitors."
There needs to be more action against typosquatting/registering of domain names to provide useless ad-filled "search" sites with no real content. These sites are annoying when they come up as results on Google, and when I make a mistake, like typing slashdot and then Shift-Enter (for .net) instead of Ctrl-Shift Enter (for .org) and go to some other site. Domains registration should require review of the registration request, kind of like USPTO and patents. I find it annoying when I want to register a domain for a site and find it is being used for something stupid, and I can't afford to buy it off of them.
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I thought having to hand over those domains was a good thing because the typosquatters are trying to make easy money using basically a negative contribution to society. Now I reallize that this sort of thing is a slippery slope.
I guess a better (and also more truly capitalist) solution would be to create browser extensions which correct typos. If someone finds the typosquatters annoying they can just use such an extension.
Nobody looking for Microsoft on the Internet is going to type "mikerowesoft.com". Just isn't going to happen.
Shew, this is good news. If I had made a typo trying to access Google, and instead of Google's homepage been presented with a link to download a program, goodness knows I couldn't have resisted the urge to download and run it! It already takes a good deal of my time getting around to running all the email attachments my friends send me, plus all these messages with attached programs I get saying my email account is suspended (which is sort of strange, because I administrate my own web site and email server - I guess I keep sending emails to myself and then forget about them). Oh well, that's the cost of being a hip, computer-savvy, in-touch kind of guy.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Another capitalist/free market solution would have been for Google to make a financial bid for those domain names, and to leave the courts out of it. If they valued the ownership of those domain names enough, then they would have been more than willing to pay that individual a fair price for them.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Was this Russian guy intentionally using typos of Google's address to generate hits? Yes. But was he infringing on their trademarks, mimicing their logos, or diluting their brand identity in the process? Not from what I can see. He may be an annoying bottom-feeder who exploits people's typing mistakes, but if he's not trying to present his sites as if they were part of Google, then I don't see why anyone has the right to yank those domain names from him.
Does Google have the right to shut down legitimate names like googol.com or goggle.com? Or if someone whose last name is Igle creates goigle.com, could that be construed as "typosquatting" too? And what about companies with less unique names who are more likely to have "typo collisions" with other legitimate names? Is this going to be reduced to the same bullshit subjective standard as pornography, where some judge "knows it when he sees it"?
If someone suggested applying this same sort of typo ownership standard to telephone numbers, people would think they were insane.
"My submission was rejected. Not complaing... but mine made note of the MikeRoweSoft.com site. Microsoft's attempt to take the domain failed."
Google's case is about typo-squatting, i.e. intentionally mispelling a domain (slaashdot.org, for example) in order to send ads to people visiting popular sites. Microsoft's case was about trademark infringement. MikeRoweSoft isn't an attempt at squatting, rather Microsoft has to defend their trademarks against dilution. (Sort of like when they went after Lindows.) The stupid thing is that everybody was against Microsoft on both counts. In MikeRoweSoft's case, everybody felt MS should have just overlooked it. In Lindows case, everybody loves Linux and not Windows. There was a hope that MS would lose something very near and dear to them. (The reasons cited were to the tune of 'Windows should never have been granted as a trademark!' The reality is that Microsoft's had that trademark for well over 10 years AND it was distinctive to them. Nobody was crying over the Palm trademark even though palmtops existed well before the Palm Pilot. Everybody ignored the potential confusion caused by selling PCs with the 'Lindows' OS showing screenshots that look very much like Windows.)
Trademarks have to be exhaustively defended. Even little harmless offenses have to be challenged. If Microsoft hadn't gone after Lindows, and another company came along and did something more evil, Microsoft would have to go after Lindows THEN the new guy. In other words, if they don't deal with the minor infringements, they risk losing their trademarks. This is true of any company, not just Microsoft.
In any case, that's probably why your story was rejected. Prevaillance of those cases hinged on different factors.
"Derp de derp."
The Internet has and allways will be an anarchy. When you go to a website, you have entered somebody's shack; you must follow all their rules, do certain things, don't do others, etc. It just so happens that there are a lot of abandoned shacks out there, or some that have stupid owners. There are many good ones, and every once in a while when you enter a shack you find that what you were looking for to begin with.
And this is the purpose of the World Wide Web. There cannot be a universal governing system because if there was, people would not be able to find that what they were looking for if the universal government disagrees with it (as they will with some).
The abandoned or "stupid" shacks are jealous of those shacks which provide us travellers with what we want. They attempt to decieve us, to lure us into their shack.
I say, let them. This is their shack and it costs them more than it costs us to get out of there. If they like their shack standing their, alone and hated, that is their decision. They paid for it and built even if the rest of us despise them for it.