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Yahoo Sued for Spyware, Typosquatting-Based Ads

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the double-whammy dept.

An anonymous reader writes to mention a Yahoo! suit involving allegations of spyware and typosquatting-based ads. From the article: "The suit claims that Yahoo displayed these advertisers' online ads via spyware and adware products and on so-called 'typosquatter' Web sites that capitalize on misspellings of popular trademarks or company names. Potentially more explosive is the plaintiff's claim that Yahoo regularly uses its relationship with adware and typosquatting sites to gin up extra revenue around earnings time, alleging that the company is conspiring to boost revenue by partnering with some of the Internet's seamier characters."

3 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Full description by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative


    Ben Edelman has a breakdown on how Yahoo fund spyware

    this is just the tip of the iceberg, Google, Ask Jeeves, MySpace, MyWay,iWon, the list of million dollar companies built from and profiting from these seedy practices goes on, its about time somebody gets the smackdown either in court or via other methods

  2. What's going on here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This apparently isn't about consumers: the plaintiffs are a bunch of pissed off advertisers, who would prefer to interfere with your search results rather than with some parked and forgotten domain. The plaintiffs also refuse to name themselves and use terms like "improper advertising displays" (like advertising speech could somehow be "improper".)

  3. They have a point! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They do have a point. Do you want me to tell you why?

    Lots and lots of typosquatters use Overture's Keyword Selector tool to find the juiciest domains. Try it yourself, try searching for "fool.com" without the quotes, and you'll be able to see the number of people who searched for that domain using one of Yahoo's search bars. This gives you a hint that there are many people who would be typing that domain in the address bar, so if nobody registered it, then the typosquatter goes ahead and registers the domain to make lots and lots of money from ADs.

    Now, please remind me, why on earth would Yahoo leave the opportunity to search for keywords that have .com or .whatever in their name? Why not filter these searches out?