PPC advertisers (e.g. Comcast)
money viewers
   Google   
money viewers
Typosquatters & brokers (e.g. MediaLogik)

Screenshots - Cmcast.com, MediaLogik, and Thousands More Intercept Misspellings
How Google and Its Partners Inflate Measured Conversion Rates and Increase Advertisers' Costs - Ben Edelman

This page gives screenshots, network flow, and plausible alternatives arising out of a user misspelling "Comcast" -- requesting "cmcast.com" (s.i.c.) rather than Comcast.com. All testing occurred on May 9, 2009.

See also discussion in main article.

Requesting cmcast.com

I request cmcast.com and receive the screen below. Notice three large ads for Comcast at page center.

Clicking a Cmcast.com ad

I click one of the listed links. I am taken from Cmcast.com (yellow) to a Google (DoubleClick) click link (green), then onwards to a Comcast site (blue). See packet log below, with the Google redirect highlighted in green. Thus, the advertiser (here, Comcast) ends up paying Google for the Cmcast.com typosquatting traffic.

GET /redirect.php?b=JpsrL8Zz20c%3D&term=comcast&nterms=Y29tY2FzdA%3D%3D&position=1&odomain=cmcast.com&source=1&market=us&currency=USD&to=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%3D%3D HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash, */*
Referer: http://www.cmcast.com/landing.php?d=cmcast.com
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Host: www.cmcast.com
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: sid=igih3gbtqmlb392b4e2oq5qfm1

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.1.6
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
P3P: CP="NOI COR NID ADMa DEVa PSAa PSDa STP NAV DEM STA PRE"
Set-Cookie: did_click=1; expires=Wed, 12-Jul-41324 04:20:00 GMT; path=/; domain=cmcast.com
Location: http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=B0YjrmvgFSt24DIbSjQTt9vivDauF3IwBwaPHww3AjbcBoJ1UEAEYASD4xZ0GKAU4AFCKwOKx_P____8BYMmW7oiEpOwPkAECoAGHq4nwA7IBCmNtY2FzdC5jb23IAQHaARJodHRwOi8vY21jYXN0LmNvbS-AAgGoAwHoA2joA_UD9QNAAAAE&num=1&sig=AGiWqtymQLc5_-fqqIlYLyWmDQb13xA9zA&adurl=http://www.buycomcast.com%3Fcpao%3D111%26kw%3Dcomcast%26cpca%3Dbc_cable%26cpag%3Dbc_comcast%26s_kwcid%3DTC%7C7055%7Ccomcast%7Ccmcast.com%7CC%7C%7C3539948141&client=ca-dp-medialogik02_noadult_xml
Content-Encoding: gzip
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-type: text/html
Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 21:42:30 GMT
Server: lighttpd

GET /aclk?sa=l&ai=B0YjrmvgFSt24DIbSjQTt9vivDauF3IwBwaPHww3AjbcBoJ1UEAEYASD4xZ0GKAU4AFCKwOKx_P____8BYMmW7oiEpOwPkAECoAGHq4nwA7IBCmNtY2FzdC5jb23IAQHaARJodHRwOi8vY21jYXN0LmNvbS-AAgGoAwHoA2joA_UD9QNAAAAE&num=1&sig=AGiWqtymQLc5_-fqqIlYLyWmDQb13xA9zA&adurl=http://www.buycomcast.com%3Fcpao%3D111%26kw%3Dcomcast%26cpca%3Dbc_cable%26cpag%3Dbc_comcast%26s_kwcid%3DTC%7C7055%7Ccomcast%7Ccmcast.com%7CC%7C%7C3539948141&client=ca-dp-medialogik02_noadult_xml HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash, */*
Referer: http://www.cmcast.com/landing.php?d=cmcast.com
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Host: googleads.g.doubleclick.net
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: id=800001d60e3dd00||t=1241905173|et=730|cs=iv-hoewy

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
P3P: policyref="http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/p3p.xml", CP="NOI DEV PSA PSD IVA PVD OTP OUR OTR IND OTC"
Cache-Control: private
Location: http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=B0YjrmvgFSt24DIbSjQTt9vivDauF3IwBwaPHww3AjbcBoJ1UEAEYASD4xZ0GKAU4AFCKwOKx_P____8BYMmW7oiEpOwPkAECoAGHq4nwA7IBCmNtY2FzdC5jb23IAQHaARJodHRwOi8vY21jYXN0LmNvbS-AAgGoAwHoA2joA_UD9QNAAAAE&num=1&client=ca-dp-medialogik02_noadult_xml&val=ChAwODAwMDAxZDYwZTNkZDAwEJXwl9AEGggQzlxYdvX7qSABKAE&sig=AGiWqtxLqR3_YRlh_3zhXeJTjHo8U85nuw&adurl=http://www.buycomcast.com%3Fcpao%3D111%26kw%3Dcomcast%26cpca%3Dbc_cable%26cpag%3Dbc_comcast%26s_kwcid%3DTC%7C7055%7Ccomcast%7Ccmcast.com%7CC%7C%7C3539948141
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 21:42:30 GMT
Server: AdClickServer
Content-Length: 0

GET /pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=B0YjrmvgFSt24DIbSjQTt9vivDauF3IwBwaPHww3AjbcBoJ1UEAEYASD4xZ0GKAU4AFCKwOKx_P____8BYMmW7oiEpOwPkAECoAGHq4nwA7IBCmNtY2FzdC5jb23IAQHaARJodHRwOi8vY21jYXN0LmNvbS-AAgGoAwHoA2joA_UD9QNAAAAE&num=1&client=ca-dp-medialogik02_noadult_xml&val=ChAwODAwMDAxZDYwZTNkZDAwEJXwl9AEGggQzlxYdvX7qSABKAE&sig=AGiWqtxLqR3_YRlh_3zhXeJTjHo8U85nuw&adurl=http://www.buycomcast.com%3Fcpao%3D111%26kw%3Dcomcast%26cpca%3Dbc_cable%26cpag%3Dbc_comcast%26s_kwcid%3DTC%7C7055%7Ccomcast%7Ccmcast.com%7CC%7C%7C3539948141 HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash, */*
Referer: http://www.cmcast.com/landing.php?d=cmcast.com
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Connection: Keep-Alive
Host: www.googleadservices.com

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
P3P: policyref="http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/p3p.xml", CP="NOI DEV PSA PSD IVA PVD OTP OUR OTR IND OTC"
Set-Cookie: Conversion=CrUBQjBZanJtdmdGU3QyNERJYlNqUVR0OXZpdkRhdUYzSXdCd2FQSHd3M0FqYmNCb0oxVUVBRVlBU0Q0eFowR0tBVTRBRkNLd09LeF9QX19fXzhCWU1tVzdvaUVwT3dQa0FFQ29BR0hxNG53QTdJQkNtTnRZMkZ6ZEM1amIyM0lBUUhhQVJKb2RIUndPaTh2WTIxallYTjBMbU52YlMtQUFnR29Bd0hvQTJqb0FfVUQ5UU5BQUFBRRITCOr5mvqZsJoCFQqenAoddQ6ddBgBIPG6muyzoPTpd0gB; expires=Mon, 08-Jun-2009 21:42:30 GMT; path=/pagead/conversion/1040340359/
Cache-Control: private
Location: http://www.buycomcast.com?cpao=111&kw=comcast&cpca=bc_cable&cpag=bc_comcast&s_kwcid=TC|7055|comcast|cmcast.com|C||3539948141&gclid=COr5mvqZsJoCFQqenAoddQ6ddA
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 21:42:30 GMT
Server: AdClickServer
Content-Length: 0

Alternative: Default Internet Explorer treatment of a nonexistent domain

Suppose no typosquatter had registered Cmcast.com. In that case, Internet Explorer would have taken me to the standard results listing shown below. Notice that the page features only one small ad for Comcast (at far right, largely truncated on my 800x600 screen). A user at this screen is highly likely to click the prominent organic link to Comcast -- thereby ending up at Comcast's site without forcing Comcast to pay an advertising fee.