Benjamin Edelman, who teaches marketing in the Harvard School of Business, has initiated a class action against Google on behalf of trademark owners whose marks have been infringed by typosquatters. (See the story on Arstechnica.) Typosquatting is the practice of registering domain names that approximate the names of real companies' websites in the hope of obtaining advantage from internet users who arrive there by mistyping (e.g. http://goggle.com/). Edelman claims that Google places ads on these fraudulent sites and benefits from revenue generated when a user clicks into the sites by mistake. Given the number of such pseudo-sites, Edelman estimates that Google makes tens of millions of dollars each year from these ads.
Readers interested in learning more about this sort of cyber-squatting might consult the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, or CADNA (bet you thought of CANADA).
I have mitigated sympathy with Professor Edelman's suit. Is it clear – or should it be clear – to Google in every case that the domain is a typosquatting domain and not just an ordinary domain? Does Google use an automated system to sell ads, so that no human being literate in the language of the legitimate domain gets to consider whether the applicant domain (applying for Google ads) is illegitimate? How should Google screen the domains on which it allows its ads to run? Notice and takedown? Must Google decide questions of trade mark law, or passing off, or deceptive trade practices, or even fraud, in running its ordinary business – or when someone asks it to?
Why is typosquatting Google's business? I imagine Prof Edelman is looking for leverage to close down the typosquatters, or to make their activity less lucrative, but must Google by law join him in this?
Is it alleged in any way that Google encourages typosquatting, as distinct from dealing with all domains in the same way?