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The company claims that surfers inadvertently mistyping Web addresses are being illegally directed to websites 'chock full of pay-per-click advertisements and little meaningful content'. As a result the owners of these sites are illegally profiting from the misuse of Microsoft's intellect property, Microsoft alleges.

Examples of addresses used in this manner include xbox360com.com and microsoftrebate.com

'"Cybersquatters" and "typosquatters" have registered these domain names containing trademarked terms or misspelled words - and hundreds of other domain names like them - with the goal of illegally profiting from them via online ad networks, Microsoft said. 'Thousands of such domains targeting Microsoft are being registered each day.'

Microsoft has filed two civil lawsuits against a total of four named defendants alleged to be profiting from domain names that infringe on the company's trademarks.

The legal campaign is being led by Microsoft attorney Aaron Kornblum, who explained that the company's Trademark and Internet Safety Enforcement groups began to notice a surge in domain name registrations containing the company's intellectual property earlier this year while monitoring websites registered by known phishers.

'Microsoft has witnessed a virtual land rush for Internet domain names with the goal of driving traffic for profit,' Kornblum said. 'Placing a high profile or pop culture trademark in your domain name is a tempting but illegal way to generate pay-per-click

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revenue.'

According to Rod Rasmussen, director of operations for Internet Identity, more than 2,000 domain names that contain Microsoft trademark terms are registered on an average day, of which at least 75 per cent are owned by what are believed to be professional domain name holding operations.

'These are all very conservative estimates,' Rasmussen said. 'We're thinking that we're really looking at 90 per cent or more of domain registrations containing Microsoft trademarks as being these kind of operators.'

Registering Web domains containing trademarked terms with the 'bad faith intent' to profit from them is forbidden under the 1999 US Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which imposes civil liability of up to $100,000 in statutory damages.

Microsoft is also working to halt online auctions of infringing domain names.

'With increasing frequency, people purchase a domain name and, if it generates a compelling amount of traffic, resell the domain name for a profit,' it claims.

The company will expand its systematic searches of such auctions and seek to have them removed from the auction website.

'Microsoft hopes to help Web surfers reach their intended Internet destinations,' Kornblum said. 'Where you cross the line is when you misuse someone else's intellectual property in your domain name. Microsoft is aggressively targeting those who misuse Microsoft's intellectual property for monetary gain.'

As part of its cybersquatting investigation Microsoft developed the Strider URL Tracer application, which is available for other domain owners to download. The software reveals potentially infringing domains and it includes a Typo-Patrol feature that generates and scans sites that capitalise on inadvertent URL misspellings. It also enables parents to block typosquatting domains that serve adult ads on typos of children's Web sites.

Strider is a free download from research.microsoft.com/URLTracer.