It's the latest twist on an old Internet game: typosquatting. Typosquatters have been around for years, registering Internet domains that are similar to popular websites, and then hoping that the traffic that they get from fat-fingered Web surfers will pay out. Often these domains do nothing more than display advertising, but that promise gifts such as iPads or US$1,000 gift cards.

Take Twiter.com, for example. Type this into the browser and a Twitter-like page, complete with a similar blue-bird logo, pops up saying, "Dear Visitor, You've been selected to take part in our anonymous survey. Complete this 30 second questionnaire, and to say 'thank you', we'll offer you a few exclusive prizes. This offer is available today only."

At the same time, a woman's voice says "congratulations" and proceeds to make the same offer. A quick check of the URL that you're on shows something that could seem very much like Twitter: twitter.com-survey2010.virtuousads.com. But that's a website that Twiter.com has redirected you to.

What the page doesn't tell you is that you may have to fill out more surveys and then sign up for all kinds of services and subscription offers in order to qualify for the prizes. If you try to figure out how you landed on this page by retyping twiter.com, you're directed to a completely different page.

The point is to drive Web surfers to what are known as affiliate marketing sites -- sites that pay others to generate Web traffic and sales leads.