Pulling the Sheets Off a “Typosquatting Recovery Firm”: CitizenHawk
Fresh site watches a watchdog.
One of the more controversial domain name firms is CitizenHawk. The firm was founded in 2007 to help brands recover typos of their domain names.
On behalf of clients, the firm sends demand letters to registrants of typos and files UDRPs as well. When it recovers a domain, it has an agreement with the client that CitizenHawk may monetize the domain for a period of time. This is usually done through the client’s affiliate program. As stated by a number of sources, CitizenHawk typically gets to monetize domains for two years ahead of control of the domain is supposed to be handed back over to its client.
But does the firm have some of its own dirt to hide, much like the typosquatters it goes following? I wrote previously regarding how it used trademarks in its meta tags, which didn’t look good for a trademark-defending firm. A fresh site sheds even more light on the firm’s operations.
At HawkNest, you can peer into the firm’s activities. Using publicly available information, the site shows CitizenHawk’s biggest clients, newest clients, and number of domains under management. But there are a lot of other surprising facts.
First, most of the domains the firm has “recovered” for clients recently have been fresh registrations. Instead of sending out a cease & desist letters, the firm is registering expired domain names that include clients’ typos. Sometimes it even registers typos that have never been registered ahead of. That’s a great business model — speculatively register typos for two years with the blessing of the trademark holder. Take a look at many of the hand registrations for one of its newest clients, LawDepot.com. If CitizenHawk’s agreement with LawDepot lets it monetize the domains for two years, that’s a good deal for an $8 registration.
Second, if the typical duration that CitizenHawk is allowed to monetize a domain name following obtaining it is 2 years, it isn’t always handing control of the domains over following that period. Many of them are still being monetized by CitizenHawk well following two years. Someone is dropping the ball.
