The Cost of Typosquatting

Conclusion

Through the research conducted for this paper, we sought to closely examine a segment of the typosquatting problem. However, typosquatting is just a small part of the overall cybersquatting problem that exists today. We hope that this whitepaper will encourage brand owners to reexamine their domain name strategy, proactively register certain key typo domains for their business, and reactively pursue the most valuable infringements. Though typosquatting is a serious issue, not all typosquatting domains are equally harmful to a brand or equally worth pursuing. Brand owners should have a domain name strategy that determines the worth of a typo domain through components such as the quantity and quality of the traffic it receives, the type of infringement, and the content it currently hosts.

While it would cost $79 million to recover all of the typosquatted domain names in our data set, spending 22 percent of that cost would recover the 10 percent of typosquatting names that would produce a return on investment in less than a year. By spending five percent of the total cost, the 2.5 percent of names that would produce a return investment in less than a month could be recovered. Finally, for less than one percent of the total cost, those names that could produce a return on investment in less than a day can be reclaimed.

Graph 8 [+]

With the right metrics and guidance, it is possible to identify opportunities with a high return on investment and thus pinpoint where brands should be focusing their reclaim efforts. However, the widespread practice of typosquatting generally clouds the ability of brands to cost-effectively address harms. We hope that this whitepaper will also encourage legislators to reexamine the regulation of the domain name space and strengthen the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). Typosquatting is a persistent and pervasive problem that requires a greater deterrent than the one that exists today. Furthermore, typosquatting is not confined by national boundaries. To truly impact typosquatting and cybersquatting in general, there needs to be a multinational treaty that sanctions an international crackdown on the practice.

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