Since eToys.com won a court order preventing etoy from using its long-standing domain two weeks ago, etoy supporters have called for "virtual riots." Message boards are boiling with invective against eToys.

This latest development seems to have caught everyone by surprise.

"Companies buy potentially derogatory domain names all the time," said Charles Lukaszewski, senior VP at eWatch, a firm that helps corporations police their brands online. "But this is the first occurrence I've heard of someone using the domain like that" -- as a redirect that drives traffic to the main site.

Most companies that buy up potential slam-site URLs take them out of commission. Call up schwabsucks.com, for instance, and you get an error message, not the latest stock quotes.

EToyssucks.com, by contrast, drives a little extra pre-Xmas traffic to eToys.com (eToys did not return calls seeking comment).

"This, to me, seems absolutely fruitless," said Lukaszewski. "If someone enters the domain name etoyssucks.com, they're doing it for a very specific reason. The likelihood of their buying something if they end up on eToys.com is zero."