Benjamin Edelman, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, has continued his quest against Google for profiting from “millions” of typo-squatting websites through Adsense advertisements.

Edelman - who is serving as the co-counsel in the Vulcan Golf, et al., v. Google et al.; trademark-holder class-action litigation - has recently resurfaced in the news for an article published in the McAfee Security Journal (Fall 2008, pages 34-37 - .pdf via wired).

In this report, Edelman explains the many issues surrounding typosquatting and its effects on domain owners before noting: “If Google ceased funding typosquatting, typosquatters would have far less incentive to register infringing domains; no other ad network is likely to pay typosquatters as much as Google does.”

Edelman’s research with the McAfee SiteAdvisor service points out that there are over 80,000 domains typosquatting on just the top 2,000 websites - and the further you look the more you’ll find. “There sure are a lot of these sites, in the millions,” Edelman said in an interview with Wired. “The overall majority show Google ads.”

BankofdAmerica.com is a prime example of his complaint (site no longer shows ads, but there’s a pic of its previous state at Wired). The website is a blatant typo, yet Google placed advertisements for the Bank of America, Wachovia, Business.com, AccountNow.net, and others.

“This is one of the unsavory ways we all end up paying Google,” explained Edelman. “Users don’t have to write Google a check to receive Google’s services. But, one way or another, Google manages to get users’ money.”

[via Wired & DNExpert]

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

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