Cameroon: The Latest Hot Spot for Typosquatting

by Erica Intzekostas on July 24, 2009

Typosquatting is the practice of intentionally registering a domain name that is similar to a popular website but with just one letter missing, or two letters swapped, or using common misspellings or a different TLD, in the hopes that it will lead to traffic. Although the practice is technically illegal, because it is the Internet it is often difficult to police. In an effort to combat typosquatting, many companies register potential typosquatting domain names, including all of the most popular TLDs, like .com, .net, and .org. (One of the most notorious examples of typosquatting was when whitehouse.com was a porn site.)

Companies who register lots of different domain names in order to minimize typosquatting may want to consider adding the TLD for Cameroon (.cm) to their list. Because of its obvious similarity to .com,  typosquatters have been registering popular domain names with the .cm TLD.  Many owners of popular websites are now taking precaution and registering their domain names with the .cm TLD, and then redirecting traffic to their home page.

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