Saturday, July 09, 2005

Favorite new word: Typosquatting

This from the Associated Press today:
Back to Print Edition - Chicago Tribune Saturday Business

THE TICKER
GOOGLE INC.: Firm awarded rights in `typosquatting'

SAN FRANCISCO -- An Internet arbitrator has awarded Google Inc. the rights to several Web site addresses that 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.

The National Arbitration Forum, a legal alternate to litigating in court, sided with a Google complaint alleging that Sergey Gridasov of St. Petersburg, Russia, had engaged in "typosquatting" by operating Web sites named googkle.com, ghoogle.com and gooigle.com.

Former Stanford University graduate students incorporated the search engine in September 1998 and Google registered its domain name a year later. Gridasov registered his Web sites in December 2000 and January 2001, Google said.

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