DNSBelgium : How To Combat Typosquatting ?

DNSBelgium, the company behind .BE domain extension, has recently released a study by iMinds-Distrinet and Stony Brook University on how to compat typosquatting.

You can read the announcement after the jump :

“A study by iMinds-Distrinet and Stony Brook University shows that popular websites are often the victim of typosquatting. This is the intentional registration of domain names that resemble an existing website, but with a typo. Rather than reaching the desired website, the surfer arrives at the website of the typosquatter.
 

The top 500 most visited websites (based on the ranking by Alexa) were used as a starting point to find typosquatting in the same TLD. Each time the study took into account one of the following errors in the URL:

    Dropping the dot after ‘www’
    Dropping one letter
    Switching 2 letters
    Doubling characters
    Pressing a wrong key
    

The results are shocking: 477 of the top 500 websites are being targeted by typosquatters. In total, more than 17.000 of these ‘fake’ websites are in the hands of just 4 parties. Typosquatters usually generate income through advertisements and affiliate programs where they get a commission by sending surfers to the correct website.
Even worse is the fact that some of these websites are being used for phishing, where you arrive at a fake website which asks for your personal details. This will make you an easy target for viruses and frauds. It is astonishing that 3 out of 4 big companies or banks aren’t taking any measures to prevent this issue.

According to Pieter Agten, author of the study, there is no general difference between the prevalence of typosquatting in ccTLDs or generic TLDs, such as .com or .net. There is a difference, however, based on the price of a certain TLD (.jp is expensive and knows very little typosquatting) and the existence of an alternative dispute resolution procedure (.pl and .ru have none and show a lot of typosquatting). The .be domain has a good ADR-procedure, where the losing party pays for all costs. This discourages typosquatters to register these types of .be domain names.
 
What can we do to prevent typosquatting?
 

According to Pieter Agten, defensive registrations are a possible defence mechanism. For big companies (e.g. banks) the costs of those registrations seem low compared to the possible damage they could experience for a phishing attack through a typosquatting domain. For smaller websites, such as personal blogs, defensive registrations are a bridge too far in regards to the limited damages they risk.

Pieter Agten feels that registrars and registries could offer an alternative. They could check every new registration to evaluate whether the domain in question turns out to be typosquatting a popular website. This type of check could discourage typosquatters to register domain names. Registrars would be able to use this service to distinguish themselves from the competition and a registry could use it to maintain or improve the reputation of their TLD.

DNS Belgium doesn’t screen new registrations specifically for typosquatting, but does offer a free tool which allows you to check whether someone else has registered variants to your domain name. More information on domain name variants. “