Over on the esteemed A4U forums a representative of Laura Ashley has discovered that an affiliate has registered a typo of their domain name (missing an ‘a’) and is profiting by routing the traffic generated through their affiliate program. The annoyed affiliate manager wants the domain ‘back’ and wants to keep the traffic.
User ‘drivetowin’ makes an interesting point saying:
I’m sorry but I have no sympathy in this situation, for a company the size of Laura Ashley the cost of a domain name is neither here or there and to not register all reasonable mispellings is either naive or incompetent.
There was a case (Tesco v Elogicom) where direct names such as tescodiet.co.uk were being used in a similar manner (ie. feed through to affiliate program) which ended up in favour of Tesco. Elogicom ended up paying costs and did not see the £26,000 ‘earnt’ via the domains.
The Phone4u.co.uk case is a closer example, where passing off and infringement was claimed against the owner from PhoneS4u.co.uk , a combination of domain names where the ‘typo’ genre could be applied.
So in summary - affiliates are slowly waking up to the cash that is going through typo domains and either the domainer will end up forking out for legal fees/settlements or will be found to be in the right and can command a sum from the company involved. Who in turn, perhaps should be sending out P45’s to their IT staff who have completely missed the domain boat 
