Typosquatting

Impact on Brands

Typosquatting causes both quantitative and qualitative harm to brand owners in the form of direct monetary loss and harm to brand name and image. Most obviously, the traffic that is siphoned away from target sites can lead to a loss in revenue that would have been gained from each of those lost impressions. Based on inferences from Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) research, we have estimated that the value of an Internet impression for a global brand is worth 15 to 25 cents. Using this estimate, one can then calculate the monetary harm being caused to a brand. Figure 4 shows the top 10 variations of four immensely popular Web sites, proving the importance of ensuring that users are not directed to a typosquatted page instead of their intended content. While these domains are actual registered typos, fortunately they are not all owned by infringing third parties.

The equivalent of 5.94 percent of traffic to myspace.com is going to its top 10 typos. Using the range of Internet impression values mentioned above, we calculate that if all 10 domains were held by infringers and used improperly to divert visitors to other content, the company would lose the marketing equivalent of between $400,000 and $700,000 each month. These numbers are calculated using the formula Value = Traffic x Impression Value. Sites that offer e-commerce transactions tend to have much higher computed damages since their formula would include additional components beyond just the value of an impression, such as lost sales.

In addition to costing companies lost impressions, there are other, less tangible consequences of typosquatting. As previously discussed in our Direct Navigation analysis, landing on a typosquatted page can cause users to feel that they have been “hijacked.” When a user is directed to unexpected and potentially inappropriate content, this uncomfortable feeling may prevent the user from trying to visit the intended site again for fear of landing on more unintended content. For a particularly powerful example, think of Disney and its target audience. The majority of users trying to find Disney content online are young children and their parents. Therefore, a typing error that leads to a typosquatted page can be disastrous if the content on the page is inappropriate for children—such as the pornographic content that finds its way onto some typosquatted domains. While an extreme example, a negative experience such as this would certainly influence a parent’s opinion of the brand and affect their willingness to navigate to that site again. This leads to a decrease in site traffic and further lost revenues due to increased negative feelings about a brand.

Users are likely to perceive a brand differently, and perhaps less favorably, after ending up on typosquatted pages. Increasing numbers of Internet users are turning to Evolved Navigation, in which they expect reputable brands to provide a high-quality online experience at sites marked by domains they may invent, but expect will still lead to the brand. We will explore this in further detail in Part III of this series, when we examine combosquatting–the combination of a brand and a popular search term–which is favored by users who practice Evolved Navigation.

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