An Unsung Microsoft Hero

If I told you to download something called “Strider URL Tracer with Typo-Patrol,” you'd think I was mad. Doesn't sound half as sexy as “Picasa” or “Napster.” Then again, Microsoft has never been known for its naming prowess (”Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise, x64 Edition” is anything but succinct). They do, however, have a few smart folks in their Research arm - and some of them have developed a program that will help you possibly counteract typo-squatting for mispelled domains. The project summary page explains:

We show that a large number of such domains are parked with domain parking services to take advantage of their effective contextual-ads infrastructures. We also show that, by analyzing the ads-fetching traffic sent from typo domains to parking services, we are able to identify major typo-squatters and domain parking services that are heavily involved in large-scale, systematic typo-squatting, as well as those that are serving adult ads harmful to minors on typos of children’s web sites.

Their research page further explains:

It is part of our ongoing effort in providing automatic and systematic web scans to discover and investigate questionable web sites in order to protect Internet users. The primary goal of Strider Typo-Patrol is to understand the practice of typo-squatting and to protect the Internet from typo-squatting-based exploits.

If you have a domain or brand that you're trying your best to protect, you might consider grabbing this bitty binary and running it once or twice. I can't say it's the most user friendly utility out there, but it certainly is useful if you can get past the learning curve. Hat tip to TDavid. Oh, and before I forget - we have the best naked domains around.

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