Tertiary hydroperoxides have been utilized for the electrophilic alkylation of activated aromatic substrates, particularly phenols and phenol ethers. Cumyl (1) and tert-butyl (2) hydroperoxides have shown a greatly different behavior as concerns the catalysis and the regioselectivity. The best catalyst for 1 is TiCl(4), which is completely inactive with 2. With the latter an effective catalyst is FeCl(3)