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Google Propping Up Typosquatting Biz?
An anonymous reader writes "Google is making oodles of cash placing ads on a vast sea of otherwise vacant Web sites that do little more than capitalize on misspelled domain name names, according to a story in today's Washington Post. From the story: 'Google Inc., which runs the largest ad network on the Internet, is making millions of dollars a year by filling otherwise unused Web sites with ads. In many instances, these ad-filled pages appear when users mistype an Internet address, such as BistBuy.com. This new form of advertising is turning into a booming business that some say is cluttering the Internet and could be violating trademark rules.'"
Typosquatter site BistBuy.com reports record profits and an all-time high hit count.
Huh?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I blame DNS.
We should have stuck with numbers. In hex. Would have kept out all the lamers, nannies, and governments.
Heck we should go back to uucp over dial-up connections.
Back in the olden days of 2004, we used to call it "cybersquatting." Kids these days and their crazy terminology. And their music.
Actually I don't see the big deal. This is nothing new.
Just the same, I'm going to register a complaint with the Netter Nusiness Nureau.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
My most common mispelling is slashdot.rog. I have that in my hosts file.
> It should be based on content. If all you see is a list of search categories and lots of ads, it's typo-squatting.
Zonk would beg to differ with you.
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I have an even better idea... let the marketplace provide services for location of commercial websites: say maybe, have a list of words ("key words") that the internet browser could type in at a website, and then that website would facilitate finding the desired website, based on a huge database of known websites.
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Incite and flee.
it's down
Must be the slashdor effect.
Shouldn't you be doing something useful?
In further news, mathematicians allege The Count is cluttering up the domain of natural numbers.
"It's a travesty, I tell you! One? Two? Three? Where does it all stop? Pretty soon there'll be none left at all!"
The Count recently purchased 9111 and 4040 - "numosquatting" two popular numbers. Numosquatting is a technique of buying numbers near or around more famous numbers, so that people who mistype the intended number get the "numosquatted" number instead.
When asked for comment, The Count said "There are a lot of numbers out there. So many I cannot even count them! Me! Oh, but let me try: one! two! three! four!"
Several hours later, The Count was reached again for comment. "Anyways, the point is that there are a lot of numbers out there. These whiny people wouldn't be happy even if we went over to the Real numbers. I mean, let's say I buy 405, right? They'll say it's 'too close to 404!' - look, there's a whole lot of numbers in between! But no, that's their special number and they can't have anything even infinitely far away from it."
"Look, if they want to make it to where no one can have any number near their special number, they should buy those numbers up too - they're asking for their single-number purchase to be equal to ten, a hundred, a million of mine!" continued The Count, "A hundred million! A billion! Ten billion! One hundred billion!" At which point this reporter's cell phone died.
When asked for rebuttal, the owner of 404 stated "that just, like, your opinion, man."
http://www.typosquatting.com/
New Google Motto: "Do no Evli !!"
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.