If you make less than $2 million per month, and can deal with doing something that is illegal and perhaps “morally annoying,” have we got a career for you: typosquatter. As a development in a Dell lawsuit shows, it’s an extremely profitable position.
Jeremy Kirk reports, “Google, whose AdSense advertising-placement program was used to monetize the
domains, was ordered to hold in a special account the first $1 million collected on behalf of the defendants each month. The second $1 million that accrues in the account every month will be given to the defendants. If more than $2 million accrues in one month, the money is split between the defendants and the Google account.”
Now, maybe the judge was being either optimistic or extremely prepared; after all, it’s a rare teenage boy who couldn’t tell you the first, second, and third $200,000 sports cars he wants to buy. It honestly sounds like around $2 million is piling up 12 times a year, though.
Dell, by the way, wants most or all of it – Kirk writes that the company “is claiming [the typosquatters’] profits as well as $100,000 per infringing domain used.” So maybe, if you do take this career path, an exit strategy should be thought out beforehand.
But hey, whatever. At least you’ll briefly own those supercars.
(murdok, murdok, and the author of this article do not endorse typosquatting, blah, blah, blah . . .)
