CitizenHawk additional resources

Ideally, your potential customers should be redirected to your site when they mistype your URL, but if your trademarked domain name is even moderately well-known, that's not what happens. Instead, they are lured away to sites full of advertising, viruses and worse. They may end up confused and angry, or may even be redirected to a competitor’s site to make a purchase. That’s why cybersquatting is not only bad for your reputation, but also your bottom line.

Digital thieves use sophisticated, automated systems to purchase dozens, if not hundreds, of possible misspellings of your domain name. Called cybersquatting or typosquatting, this practice allows them to build vast networks of web sites to siphon traffic away from legitimate companies. The sheer size of typosquatters’ networks virtually guarantees that if a customer makes an error in typing your domain name, they will be redirected to a typosquatter's network.

Frequently, many typosquatters have partnerships with advertising syndication networks. The typosquatting site will display ads to confuse your customer. If your customer clicks on one of the ad links, the typosquatter gets paid and your customer will be redirected to the unknown. Frequently, the advertisements are likely to lead your customers to competitive web sites. But these sites sometimes display your own pay-per-click ads; if a customer clicks on one, at least they are redirected to your site. But you have to pay for each click generated on one of these fraudulent domains, eating into your bottom line and harming your reputation.

Other more malicious typosquatters may display a web site that looks similar or identical to yours in an attempt to steal business from you. Other times, it is an attempt to trick your customers into revealing their personal information at a site they think they can trust. This kind of attack is called “phishing.” In the worst cases, typosquatters redirect your customers to sites with viruses and/or pornography.

Certainly, any of these possibilities would reflect very poorly on your brand.

What is a UDRP?

Historically, there were only two options to reclaim a domain name back from a typosquatter.

Option 1: Request return of your domain name. This sometimes works, especially after informing the cybersquatter of trademark infringement. In many cases, however, more aggressive action is required.

Option 2: Take the cybersquatter to court. This is expensive and frequently ineffective against typosquatters located outside the United States.

Now there is a third option…

Option 3: The international body that governs the Internet – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – has created a standard set of guidelines for dealing with cybersquatters. Called the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), this document lays out a procedure for handling domain disputes that is significantly faster and less expensive than a standard court case. The results are also binding internationally. It is essentially an arbitration procedure.

In order to successfully demand that a domain be turned over to you, the UDRP requires you to prove three things:

the typosquatting domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which you have rights
the typosquatter has no rights or legitimate interests with respect to the domain name
the typosquatting domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith

CitizenHawk’s TypoSquasher solution is the historical repository for all of the data required to eventually file and win a UDRP action. CitizenHawk keeps archived data for all infringing domains, including old screenshots and utilized monetization method. So while the cybersquatter may change the screens and landing page when confronted with a UDRP, TypoSquasher holds the historical keys.

Other Information Resources

Internet Library of Cybersquatting and Domain Name Disputes