ANOTHER kind of cybersquatting is known as 'typosquatting' in which a person registers a domain name - slightly misspelt - of a well-known brand, but still clear enough to be associated with it.

Complaints to the Singapore Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy's (SDRP) secretariat are sometimes about this kind of squatting.

One Singaporean who tried to be a typosquatter was Mr Yeo Zhiguang. In 2006, the 24-year-old Web designer successfully registered macdonalds.com.sg, macdonald.com.sg and mcdonald.com.sg as his domain names.

He had to give them up last September, when fast-food giant McDonald's, which owned the domain name, mcdonalds.com, complained to the SDRP secretariat. When The Straits Times visited his Clementi flat, he declined comment.

Another common dispute settled by the SDRP is over domain names between business rivals.

The 2005 dispute over the domain name teckleong.com.sg, was between two families that had been partners in a company called Teck Leong, set up by the Kuah family in the 1930s. Some years later, the Lees became partners.

In 1999, the firm, then known as Teck Leong Hardware, was liquidated due to disagreements between the two families. The Kuah family then set up Teck Leong Industries with the teckleong.com.sgdomain name a year later.

The Lee family, which set up Teck Leong Metals, claimed in 2005 that the Kuahs had no right to the domain name.

The SDRP administrative panellist threw out their complaint.

KHUSHWANT SINGH