Facebook Inc. (FB) Wins 100 Domains, $2.8M Judgment in Misspelling Case

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) was the latest major tech company to take on “typosquatters” or “cybersquatters,” and after some mixed results by a couple brethren – Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) – Zuck has struck a blow in favor of the tech giants, of whom many of these “squatters” try to take advantage simply by having bad or fast spellers on keyboards.

A federal court ruled in favor of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), awarding it more than 100 domain names and about $2.8 million in damages in a case against several “typosquatters,” who had created a number of domains based on the misspelling of facebook.com and profiting from those mistakes by users. Some of the offending domains that will now be controlled by Facebook include “gacebook.com” and “dacebook.com.” Some of these domains wound up directing traffic away from Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) and onto suspicious or malicious web sites.

“We are pleased with the court’s recommendation. We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to enforce against those who attempt to take advantage of the people who use our service,” said Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) attorney Craig Clark in a statement. Facebook has been an active crusader against typosquatters, having collected  a number of other domains totaling in the hundreds in past cases. This, however, is believed to be the first case that involved a judgement of liability damages being paid. If this precedent holds in the future, the lucrative underground business of typosquatting might become endangered.

While Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has had a series of victories against these cyberpirates, as they are sometimes called, other companies have had mixed results. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was involved in a pretty famous typosquatting case, when Canadian teen and part-time web designer Mike Rowe decided to create the domain name of MikeRoweSoft.com for his business. Microsoft at first offered the young man $10 for his fun, but Rowe decided to hold out for more. Since Microsoft was able to paint Rowe as someone looking to profit from the domain by selling it to Redmond, the company got a cease-and-desist order against Row. Now that domain leads to a Bing search page with “Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft” at the top.

Google was also involved in a similar case, but that turned out a little differently..

In another case, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) lost a typosquatting case last summer against the owner of the site Oogle.com. Google filed a claim against Oogle.com, which was a domain that led users to porn sites. Google claimed it was easy for users to misspell google.com and go to the adult site, but the owner of the Oogle.com domain was able to argue successfully – though the National Arbitration Forum had “suspicions” about the claim – that he registered the domain before Google had become so popular. Google lost the case because it was unable to prove bad faith” on the part of the Oogle.com owner to register its own domain, which was a critical factor in ruling that a case of typosquatting had occurred. So Oogle.com was allowed to remain.

What are your thoughts about this Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) case, and your thoughts in general about the underground typosquatting industry? Do you think this Facebook case  can deter future typosquatters? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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