Jack Schofield
On the Web, pornography is just a misplaced keystroke away. Last week, Brian Milburn, president of California-based Solid Oak Software, said: “Our researchers have discovered thousands of registered domain names that are extremely similar to those of major companies. We call them `typo’ sites.” The increase in such sites was “an alarming trend”, said Solid Oak Software, which tracks sites for its Cybersitter censorship software.
Suppose an innocent user is trying to reach Microsoft’s site but hits “y” instead of “t”: instead. The company behind that has also registered and misspellings such as .
Mistyping or leads to Jenni & Ashley’s XXX Playground. This is registered to West Coast Entertainment Incorporated and the interesting-sounding Mike Mickrosoft. But his telephone number led to an answering machine for Dallas Construction, and so far he has failed to return our calls.
Getting the right letters in the wrong order, as with and , can also lead to unwanted websites. Other popular search engines have unrelated parasites (or para- sites), like , , , , , , and .
Websites have exploited users’ mistakes for years. After United States President Bill Clinton brought the White House to the Web at , others registered , and . The “.com” address, used by a porn site, is easy to reach by accident because most modern browsers automatically put “www.” on the front and “.com” on the end of any word typed in.
In 1997, two US entrepreneurs, Robert Hoffer and Timothy Kay, formed a company called Typo.net to try to profit from Web surfers’ cacography. They registered the domain names of almost 100 common misspellings. Their idea was to display an advertisement on the misspelled page before sending users on to the site they were trying to reach.
Not all mistypings lead to porn sites. Many go to , which offers a search facility using 37 popular search engines. But the site includes a link to an “adult” site.
Some companies have taken legal action against “para-sites”. Late last year, Chrysler, the US car manufacturer, sued The Net Incorporated, claiming it “pirated the name `Dodge’ to promote sexually explicit and offensive material”. Chrysler was upset that users seeking its site could end up at the porn instead. The site no longer exists.
Clever companies now register common variants of their websites as well.