Typo-squatters literally bank on internet users typing popular URLs incorrectly. Photo / Chris Skelton
Typo-squatters literally bank on internet users typing popular URLs incorrectly. Photo / Chris Skelton
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SYDNEY - A slip of the fingers on the keyboard is helping a band of online entrepreneurs make money from our mistakes.
A new report from security software company McAfee reveals the practice of "typo-squatting" - using common misspellings of popular brands, products and people in order toredirect consumers to alternative websites.
The alternative website may consist of a page of click-thru ads designed to generate revenue for the typo-squatting owner, or could be designed to look like the original in an attempt to gather login and password information from a user.
The report lists YouTube, Google, Wikipedia and Telstra among the 10 most popular typo-squatting sites in Australia.
"Typo-squatting illustrates the Wild West mentality that remains dominant in major portions of the internet," McAfee Avert Labs and Product Development senior vice president Jeff Green said.
"Even at its most benign, this practice takes consumers to places they never intended and penalises legitimate businesses by siphoning customers away or making them pay a charge to re-acquire customers.
"At its worst, typo-squatting leads to online scams, get-rich-quick offers and other risks."
The report estimates that a typical consumer who misspells a popular website address has a one-in-14 chance of landing at a typo-squatter site.
Children's sites are heavily targeted. More than 60 of the most squatted sites are designed to appeal to the 18-and-under demographic, with squatters targeting domains like webkinz.com, clubpenquin.com and neopets.com.
The McAfee report was based on a review of 1.9 million variations of 2771 of the most popular domain names.
