Microsoft Sues 'Cybersquatters'

[haui]

NEW YORK -- Microsoft Corp. said it has filed three lawsuits against "cybersquatters," in an effort to fight back against a surge of online trademark infringement by people seeking profit from pay-per-click advertising.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant said cybersquatters and typosquatters _ people who register Web addresses either with trademarked terms or with common misspellings in the hopes of luring Web surfers who mistype addresses into their browsers _ are now registering more than 2,000 domains each day targeting Microsoft.

The vast majority of the sites, which have addresses like "microsoftrebate.com," "xbox36com.com" and "msnfinance.com," are bought by professional operations that place nothing on the pages but pay-per-click ads served by online-ad networks, Microsoft said. About a quarter of the sites use privacy services to disguise their identities.

for more see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...082200767.html

[GTP Dave]

I like that MS is doing that because the same people are stealing my traffic and yours too!
Hooray for Microsoft!

[Head Boy]

I guess this is cheaper than WIPO. The next stage will be the registration of a load of International companies instead of American ones.

[Head Boy]

Actually the most interesting implication here is that search engines are failing to deliver, and surfers are turning to direct navigation as an alternative.

[dRI-X]

well.microsoft is microsoft

[Toker]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Actually the most interesting implication here is that search engines are failing to deliver, and surfers are turning to direct navigation as an alternative.

Well the first 15 listings in SEs now are paid, I start on the second page
most of the time in a search..