Google Hit With Typosquatting Class Action

Harvard Business School professor Benjamin Edelman believes Google is profiting from and encouraging typosquatting by placing ads on trademark infringing made-for-AdSense websites. As co-counsel in a class action suit, Edelman suggests Google could be making money from a million domains or more.

Typosquatting is the practice of registering a domain that is an errant version of a popular website in order to gain traffic and ad clicks from people who misspell or mistype their intended domain. For example, one might type bankofamrica.com instead of bankofamerica.com. Typosquatting has been illegal in the States since 1999, and is considered trademark infringement in most countries.

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