The registered domain will have ads of services similar to the original one so that the user who made a typing mistake will click on these links, generating revenue for the bogus domain. It is safe to say that there would be a typosquatted duplicate for any website with a considerable national readership."Typosquatting is registration of a domain name similar to a popular name with a small change in spelling so that users who mistakenly type the wrong spelling would end up in the alternate site," says Na Vijayashankar , Bangalore-based cyber law expert and promoter of education website cyberlawcollege.com.
Even though there are innumerable instances where popular Indian websites are typosquatted, not even a single case has been registered against typosquatters in India; the major difficulties being proving a wrongful intent and tracing the owner of the domain.
For example, Indianrailway.com and indianrailways.com are ty-posquatted sites of Indian Railways, the official sites being www.indianrail.gov.in and www.indianrailways.gov.in. Both the ty-posquatted sites display offer for sale. When checked, indianrailway .com leads to a US-based domain seller and indianrailways .com leads to an UK-based hosting service provider.
Getting a domain name back
For the purposes of getting a domain name back under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), three conditions have to be fulfilled:
- The disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights
- The respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name
- The disputed domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith.
Source:
Typosquatters roam unchecked in India
