Google is profiting from millions of typo-squatting websites that earn advertising from Google's Adsense advertising program, Harvard University professor Ben Edelman says.
In a report published Monday, Edelman says Google profits from typo-squatting websites that run ads using Google's Adsense -- which, ironically, are often bought by the owners of the legitimate sites web surfers were trying to visit.
"This is one of the unsavory ways we all end up paying Google," Edelman says in an interview. "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."
Edelman, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School and an advisor to McAfee, says there are as many as 80,000 domains "typo-squatting" on the United States' top 2,000 websites alone, including MySpace, FaceBook and Craigslist.
Edelman's report, published in the McAfee Security Journal (.pdf), shows that there are as many as 251 typo-squatted domains associated with Bank of America alone, and there are as many as 327 typo-squatted domains feeding off the cartoonnetwork.com site.
Edelman and other lawyers have filed a class action lawsuit representing domain owners who claim the Google Adsense for Domains (AFD) program is assisting in violating trademarks. A hearing is scheduled for as early as next month in which Edelman will ask an Illinois federal judge to allow the case against Google to proceed.
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