Dell Sues Cybersquatters
d3ell.com, de3LL.com, d4ell.com, among the domains allegedly cybersquatted.
Dell Inc (NASDAQ: DELL), the computer maker, has filed a lawsuit against three individuals for allegedly cybersquatting typos of Dell.com. The three people named in the suit, Alf Temme, Lars Crispin Temme, and Kim Temme, allegedly forwarded the domain names through a LinkShare affiliate link to land at Dell.com. By doing so, the three profited whenever someone purchased an item on Dell’s site.
Many of the domains mentioned in the suit, counting de4ll.com, dedll.com, derll.com and dxell.com, no longer resolve. Still, the thumbnail preview at DomainTools.com shows that these domains were indeed forwarded to Dell.com.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a case like this. Lands End brought a similar case against an affiliate last year.
Sizable firms typically are not proactive regarding acquiring typos of their domain names despite the low cost of doing so. Still, it’s also surprising that typosquatters are using affiliate programs of the infringed parties to monetize these domains. It’s easy for the firm to identify the source of the traffic and determine it’s from trademark-infringing domains. Perhaps the typosquatters hope that people will assume the typos are owned by the infringed firm.
