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Microsoft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the slashdot-is-not-a-typo dept.

blueZ3 writes "ZDnet is running a story on a new tool from Microsoft that aims to inform users when they reach 'typo domains'. Apparently, there's concern in Redmond that IE users are being exploited by companies running ad farms on typo domains. The tool uses an automated search routine to look for domains with particular types of typographical errors--transpositions, incorrect TLDs, missing letters--and then adds the domains to a database. The eventual goal (though this isn't clear from the article) seems to be something akin to Verisign's URL redirecting, where typo domains are blocked."

4 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sounds great, but may be damaging to some by Crouty · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    how is MS going to determine the legitimate misspellings from the illegitimate misspellings?
    If I was a data miner like M$, I would maintain a whitelist and have every browser connect to my servers on a regular basis to update that whitelist. I would not be a bit surprised if it worked like this. Of course, a personalized subscription to this service would be even better.
    --
    On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
  2. I see you're trying to type Firefox ... by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    did you mean Internet Explorer?

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  3. Re:Misspelled domain data by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    if there had been no Microsoft, there would be no advancement in computing.

    That's a ridiculous notion. But it is worth expanding on a little. One of the best things Microsoft did for 'computing' in the last decade was continually push the 'bloatware' envelope.
    By producing turgid bloated apps and 'Desktop Environments' they forced rapid obsolescence of hardware in many large enterprises. Which drove a rapid hardware obsolesence cycle. End result? At least from where I am sitting, it meant lots of 'old' machines for Linux and BSD operating systems.

    A good parallel to this is in WalMart. In my community, there is a building that now has a thriving flea market operating out of it. Lots and lots of vendor booths with a ton of options for all sorts of purchases. That building was constructed by WalMart, who after a time moved to a new, bigger building. People bemoan what WalMart does to 'Main Street' but in at least some instances their entry and motion within a local marketplace eventually drives down the cost of retail space to the point where small innovative marketplaces can grow.

    I liken this to the same thing that Microsoft has done: driven the computing hardware market into becoming a broad and cheap commodity business. Which free (in all senses) OSes can and do expand into. I'm typing this on a machine running NetBSD that is a Dell PIII box that I paid less than $10 for at an auction. It was no longer suitable at the school it came from to run Windows Bloatedness.

    To roughly paraphrase the dolphins in a Douglass Adams book: "So long, Bill Gates, and thanks for all the hardware."

    That's really the main way that I see Microsoft as 'advancing computing.' They are trailing edge in almost all ways. Anything 'cool' they do, they buy in or copy from somewhere else.

  4. Re:Censoring the Net? by jorgie · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Would someone please write a captcha that forces people to RTFA before the can post?

    1. It is not default part of IE and never will be. You will always have to choose to enable it.
    2. It does not *correct* your typing and send you to another site without your approval.
    3. Entries for sites that are not obvious squatters will not be put in the database.
    4. It does nothing to non-existant domains so it does not "break" dns. (Unlike other systems.)

    Sheesh, there are more idiots on /. these days then on digg, and that is saying something.

    Jorgie