Peeps are gonna do what peeps are gonna do.
I am no exception.
We all have our personal opinions about TM, typos, yada yada.
But big business has their own opinion. Unfortunately, they also wield the power and the money.
We all know about the Microsoft litigations. But here is a site I found yesterday while doing some research.
This is a project and now a free download offered by MS for this very purpose...typosquatters and cybersquatters.
http://research.microsoft.com/resear...LTracer/S2.htm
Here is a link to the project's home page.
http://research.microsoft.com/URLTracer/
Their research of 60 targeted domain names netted 8,598 typos parked. They went as far as listing the top six parking sites:
OINGO
DomainSponsor
SedoParking
Qrsch
Netster
HitFarm
Now that is typos. What about non typos. Blatant TM usage.
Beyond typo-squatting, these parking services also park a large number of domains with names containing (non-typo) brand names (April 2006):
* 780 *Disney* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 418 *Yahoo* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 370 *Microsoft* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 366 *Sony* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 320 *XBox* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 280 *Ebay* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 190 *Nokia* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 112 *Canon* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 79 *Nintendo* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 71 *Panasonic* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 61 *Gucci* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 48 *Citibank* domains: grouped by parking services; grouped by IP addresses
* 44 *Marriott* domains: grouped by parking services and traffic affiliates; grouped by IP addresses
Like them or not, the TM and copyright holders do not like them.
Those stats are a little outdated. But nevertheless show distinct trends.
It is dry reading but informative. It also goes into detail the relationships made between Sedo and many of these TM holders and agreements. So if your name is given the boot, perhaps you now know why.
Soon, look for all the Search engines to stop providing feeds to these domains. Afterall, they are victims themselves.
All in all, it appears that their targeted search netted close to 13,000 typos and TM violations.