Frank Michlick points to an article in today’s Washington Post that discusses domain typos in more detail.
Although the article does not mention .eu domains directly it isn’t hard to see what can happen if the examples cited are to go by:
The Post, using a software tool created by the Microsoft Research division, found hundreds of active Web sites showing Google ads at addresses that appear to be misspelled variations of well-known company names, known as “typo-domains.” Their owners are known as “typosquatters.”
The Post generated roughly 100 random misspellings of “www.earthlink.net” and found 38 sites using variations of the Earthlink name “parked” at a Google-owned service called Oingo.com. All 38, which includes “dearthlink.net” and “rearthlink.net,” serve Google ads.
Likewise, nearly a dozen sites with variations of “Verizon Wireless” were showing Google ads, with some linked to the company’s official VerizonWireless.com. That suggests that Verizon Wireless may be paying Google for ads on typosquatter-owned sites.
Verizon Wireless spokesman John Johnson said the company has a successful track record of getting such sites shut down and takes “a particularly dim view of typosquatters.”
And how much money is this worth?
That’s the scary bit. One source states:
“I know quite a few guys making over a million dollars a year from advertising on their domains,” he said. “It’s like a 24-hour money-printing machine.”
