How to Protect Your Brand From Typosquatting

Typosquatting protection starts with a simple idea: find the look-alike names that exist, register the obvious ones yourself and watch for new ones. Then lock down your email and report abuse when you see it. Six steps cover most of the risk for a small brand.

What typosquatting is and why protection matters

Typosquatting means registering a misspelling or look-alike of a known name. People who mistype your address land on the wrong site. Criminals also use these names for phishing, where a fake page copies yours to steal passwords.

The damage is real. Customers lose trust, and they blame your brand for a site you do not run. Even a small brand can be a target, as soon as people know it. Good typosquatting protection is cheap compared with the loss.

Step 1: find the look-alikes

Before you can defend, you need to see the problem. A look-alike can be a typo, a doubled letter, a swapped pair, a similar-looking character or a name with an added word such as "login".

The Lookalike Finder lists such variants of your brand and shows which ones are already registered. It also shows where their DNS is hosted. Run it on your main name first.

Step 2: register the obvious ones

You cannot buy every variation. A brand with a long name has thousands, so typosquatting protection is about choosing well. Focus on the most likely ones: the common typos, the plural and the version without a hyphen.

Choose a few, register them and point them to your main site. Each costs only a normal registration fee. That is a small price against a lost customer. Also keep the renewal dates on your calendar, so the names do not lapse.

Step 3: secure your email

Criminals often send mail that pretends to come from your name. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your own domain and on the extra names you registered. Our guide on SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC explains the order.

For the extra names that you do not use for mail, publish records that say "no mail is sent from here". That makes them useless for fake messages and adds a layer of typosquatting protection. The Domain Health Check shows whether the records are in place.

Step 4: typosquatting protection means watching for new look-alikes

New look-alikes appear all the time. A check once a year is not enough. Re-run the Lookalike Finder every month, or use alerts. NameDaemon Pro can send a daily alert for new .com names that contain your brand as a keyword.

Also watch for look-alike letters from other alphabets. These internationalised names can look identical to your brand on screen. About 0.44% of .com names start with "xn--", which marks them.

Step 5: report abuse

If a look-alike hosts a phishing page, act fast. Report it to the registrar and to the web host. Both have abuse contacts. Most act quickly on clear cases of phishing.

You can also report the page to the browser makers and to blocklist projects, such as Spamhaus. Collect proof first: screenshots, the address and the date.

Step 6: use the dispute rules

If a name uses your trademark in bad faith, there is a formal route. The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy, or UDRP, lets you ask for the name to be transferred or cancelled. ICANN describes it on its UDRP page.

The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center handles many of these cases. To win, the complainant must show three things. First, the name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark they hold. Second, the owner has no rights or legitimate interest in the name. Third, the owner registered it and uses it in bad faith. Check that you can show all three before you start. WIPO's fee starts at USD 1,500 for one to five names with a single panelist, before any legal help.

Typosquatting protection: what to remember

You cannot stop every look-alike, but typosquatting protection makes your brand a harder target. Find, register, secure, watch, report and dispute. For the basics of owning a name, read our post on ten domain name mistakes. A strong setup makes the next step easier, because attackers prefer easy targets. Keep your typosquatting protection up to date as your brand grows.

Sources

• ICANN: UDRP policy text: the three things a complainant must prove.
• WIPO: domain name dispute resolution: how UDRP cases are filed.
• WIPO: fees for UDRP cases: the fee schedule.
• CISA: avoiding social engineering and phishing: lookalike web addresses used for phishing.

Originally published at namedaemon.com/typosquatting-protection-how-to-protect-your-brand/. NameDaemon has 18 free tools for .com names, built on the daily zone file, and the numbers are on the State of .com page.