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Web users who've had the frustrating experience of mistyping a common or popular Web site URL and inadvertently landing on a page full of pay-per-click ads may soon have relief if a new campaign by Microsoft succeeds.

The software company today filed three lawsuits against so-called "cybersquatters" that have purchased Web site domain names containing names that are Microsoft's registered trademarks, allegedly so that they can lure Web browsers to sites laden with pay-per-click advertisements.

The term cybersquatting refers to the practice of including the name of a popular brand or company in a URL that is set up to deliver pay-per-click ads or other content that has little value to the user and is not connected to the brand or company whose name the URL contains.

"With each click, revenue is generated for both the advertising network and the person who owns the site," said Aaron Kornblum, an Internet safety enforcement attorney at Microsoft. He characterized this practice as an infringement on Microsoft's trademark and argued that it is forbidden under a 1999 law called the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits anyone who "has a bad faith intent" from registering Web site domains that contain trademarked terms.

Windows, Hotmail Names Used

As part of an initiative undertaken by Microsoft's Trademark and Internet Safety Enforcement groups, Microsoft filed suit against three defendants in Salt Lake City, Utah: Jason Cox, Daniel Goggins, and John Jonas, suing them both as individuals and through their two companies, Jonas and Goggins Studios and Newtonarch. According to the suit, the three work together to use Microsoft trademarks such as Windows and Hotmail in 324 domain names that they have registered for sites that contain only pay-per-click ads.

Some of the domain names registered by the three that Microsoft claims infringe on its trademarks include 1windows45.info, 1replacingwindows34.info, 1hotmail25.info and 1hotmail27.info, according to documents Microsoft filed.

A similar suit, filed in Los Angeles, alleges that Long Beach, California, resident Dan Brown and his company Partner IV Holdings have used trademarks such as Xbox and Windows in 85 domain names for sites that are used for pay-per-click ads.

Microsoft also filed a third "John Doe" suit to target people who have registered domain names that infringe on Microsoft trademarks but who have protected their identities through online registrars' privacy registration services, Kornblum said. The services allow people to purchase Web site domain names without publicly revealing their identities.

"We found hundreds of infringing domains that do this, and we've whittled down the list to 217 domains that were most egregiously infringing [on Microsoft trademarks]," he said. Microsoft is using the John Doe suit to subpoena the online registrars in an effort to obtain the personal information of the people who registered the offending sites, Kornblum added.

Domain Auctions Also Targeted

In addition, Microsoft also is working to shut down online auctions that resell Web-site domain names that contain its trademarks, he said. "In the past, we have done some irregular requests to online auction companies to take these down, but we'll be doing this more systematically for auctions [now]," Kornblum said.

According to Kornblum, the initiative to target cybersquatters arose several months ago out of work Microsoft has been doing with a company called Internet Identity in Tacoma, Washington, to thwart phishing scams. Microsoft and Internet Identity have been monitoring the registration of new Internet domain names in the United States in an effort to track down phishing scams, and they noticed that sites were being registered to promote cybersquatting in addition to phishing, he said.