Cybersquatting

Cybersquatting is the use of a domain name which is another person's trademark. The domain name may be the name of a person, a company, or an organization. The purpose of cybersquatting is to make money.

For example:

  • Domain parking: somebody buys a domain name of a company, because they hope to sell the domain to the company later.
  • Phishing: somebody buys the domain name of a company, to fool people who visit that website. These visitors think the company owns the website — but a scammer actually owns the website. When they use their banking number, the scammer can now steal money from their bank account.

In the USA, cybersquatting may be a crime under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.[1]

Typosquatting

Typosquatting is a kind of cybersquatting. A domain name is used, which is similar to another website or trademark. For example, typosquatting could use wikpedia.org instead of wikipedia.org. It could also use a different URL extension, such as whitehouse.org instead of whitehouse.gov.[2]

References
  1. "Cybersquatting: What It Is and What Can Be Done About It". Nolo.
  2. "Land's End Gets Trial in Unusual 'Typosquatting' Case". FindLaw. 20 June 2016.
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