Court Rules In Favor Of Facebook In ‘Typosquatters’ Case

The U.S. District Court for Northern California ruled in favor of Facebook in a case against a group of “typosquatters,” who purchase domain names that are nearly identical to those of established Web properties in order to direct Web surfers who mistype to potentially dangerous sites.

The U.S. District Court for Northern California ruled in favor of Facebook in a case against a group of “typosquatters,” who purchase domain names that are nearly identical to those of established Web properties in order to direct Web surfers who mistype to potentially dangerous sites.

TechCrunch reported that the court recommended that 105 domains be turned over to Facebook, along with statutory damages of $2.795 million.

According to TechCrunch, several of the URLs were registered simultaneously by single entities such as Newgate, which registered 50 domain names that sounded similar to Facebook, in what the court filing called “registering and using infringing domain names to divert traffic from Facebook’s website in an effort to deceive users and make money.”

TechCrunch pointed out that Facebook became one of the first big companies to win liability damages due to the U.S.

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