Typo-squatter faces 20 years in jail

[John Scott]

A man in Nevada is facing a possible 20 years in jail after trying to defraud people out of their domain names.

David Scali pleaded guilty in court to a charge of mail fraud after being caught out in the scam.

Scali registered an email under a false name and pretended to be an intellectual property lawyer, threatening $100,000 lawsuits unless domain name holders signed over their property within 48 hours.

The man targeted websites with similar names to popular sites. When internet users mistype URLs the traffic these sites generate can be used to sell advertising on the misspelt sites, a practice known as domain-squatting or typo-squatting.

http://www.vnu.co.uk/vnunet/news/219...r-faces-twenty