Technobabbles I try to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Don't be fooled.

Why I Hate Typosquatting and “Parking” Pages

I haven't complained enough about typosquatting here. It's really a despicable practice, and I always hate ending up on a site that is doing it.

What is typosquatting, you ask? It's when some person or company buys a domain that is a misspelling of another company's or person's with the intent to capture mistyped traffic to that other site. For example, if you type www.google.cm instead of www.google.com, you could end up on a typosquatting site (in this case owned by the government of Cameroon, at least as of this past summer). Often, such sites will serve up ads, and I wouldn't put it past them to serve up adware or spyware, too (that would probably be reserved for malicious hacker cracker-owned sites).

I have ended up on these sites many times in my Internet life, and always hate it. I also dislike "parking" pages, which some registrars set up for sites that do not yet have hosting. They often exhibit similar behavior to the typosquatters, showing ads and "related keywords."

Personally, I declare war on all of them, and have installed the URL Fixer Firefox extension to counteract typos. It doesn't always work, though. I'm considering enabling OpenDNS on my computer, possible also suggesting to my dad that we enable it on our home router. I refuse to be directed to a page full of ads simply because I forget an 'o'...

I haven't complained enough about typosquatting here. It's really a despicable practice, and I always hate ending up on a site that is doing it. What is typosquatting, you ask? It's when some person or company buys a domain that is a misspelling of another company's or person's with the intent to capture mistyped traffic to that other site. For example, if you type www.google.cm instead of www.google.com, you could end up on a typosquatting site (in this case owned by the government of Cameroon, at least as of this past summer). Often, such sites will serve up ads, and I wouldn't put it past them to serve up adware or spyware, too (that would probably be reserved for malicious hacker cracker-owned sites). I have ended up on these sites many times in my Internet life, and always hate it. I also dislike "parking" pages, which some registrars set up for sites that do not yet have hosting. They often exhibit similar behavior to the typosquatters, showing ads and "related keywords." Personally, I declare war on all of them, and have installed the URL Fixer Firefox extension to counteract typos. It doesn't always work, though. I'm considering enabling OpenDNS on my computer, possible also suggesting to my dad that we enable it on our home router. I refuse to be directed to a page full of ads simply because I forget an 'o'...