Combosquatting

The Business of Cybersquatting, Part 3 of 3

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Foreword

Combosquatting refers to the practice of combining a particular brand and a generic keyword to create a cybersquatted domain name. This form of cybersquatting has evolved to take advantage of Internet users who attempt to Direct Navigate to a particular place within a company’s site, a practice that we have named Evolved Navigation.

An example of Evolved Navigation is the entry of upstracking.com into the navigation bar by a user attempting to track a package shipped by UPS. Currently, this page resolves to a pay-per-click Web site.¹ Users looking to track UPS packages must explore ups.com to in order to find tracking information. However, 78,000 people per year are attempting to find the same information at upstracking.com despite the fact that this domain has never been communicated or advertised. An example of a company taking advantage of Evolved Navigation effectively is Amazon.com, which redirects amazonbaby.com to a page on Amazon.com that displays products for babies.

Evolved Navigation typically delivers high-quality traffic, since the users who enter these domains are looking for very specific content; as a result, this traffic is valuable to both brand owners and opportunists. Combosquatters seek to take advantage of this form of Direct Navigation as a way to further infringe upon brands. We are examining combosquatting as a sub-category of cybersquatting in an attempt to further understand its nature, as well as to delve deeper into other evolving tactics that are used to take advantage of Direct Navigation and prey upon consumers and brands alike. Thoughtful examination of the patterns highlighted in this study will provide a more detailed understanding of combosquatting, allow for the creation of a more effective strategy to combat this practice and reveal new ways to tap into the value of Evolved Navigation. We recommend reading our previous studies on Direct Navigation and typosquatting, as they both provide important background for fully understanding this study.

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