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VeriSign Looks At Earning Money on Domain Typos
Harald Paulsen writes "In a recent article Computer Business Review uncovers how VeriSign Inc is testing a service that would return a webpage if a user mistypes an URL. Basically all nonexistant domain queries could return an IP address and if the user was trying to access a page with a webbrowser they could get redirected to a search-engine, or worse: a page asking them to buy a domain. This is most certainly breaking the DNS standard and could be compared to cybersquatting (Hey Ford, want to have a banner ad whenever someone mistypes Toyota?). This is interesting in relation to an earlier story about register.com and holding-pages."
This is also done when .org, .net, .com, .ca, etc. are confused. For example, Gnome and Gnome
of a position of trust.
They should maintain the registry from a technical perspective, period.
At least it's better than that frightening site that was/is (I'm not looking) at anazon.com. They had bestiality pictures on the main page!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
And the funny thing is, they could probably even make some money off of that. Large companies like Toyota and Merill Lynch probably could afford it and would pay for the right to have users taken directly to them. Additionally, Verisign could have a service that guesses close domains built in, giving suggestions to a misguided user while serving a banner ad or two -- or heck, just says "Another service of Verisign".
But that's the problem with modern business thinkers. It's not about providing a service and seeing if you can get paid for it. It's about controlling channels and leveraging that control.
Seriously, I don't even suggest for a moment to anyone I know that they consider using Verisign for anything. They're the antitheses of trust.
Tweet, tweet.
Oh, I already DID configure it to do that. So I don't need this alleged 'service', thankyouverymuch.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I can't think of a better way to exponentially increase the number of domains registered. Currently, FooBar company knows that nobody has registered any typo names, and that if anybody does, they can probably get rid of the type names through a lawsuit. Therefore, FooBar registers only foobar.com.
If this takes effect, the story changes. FooBar knows that if any customer makes a typo, Verisign will get to show an ad for Widget.com. The only way to make this go away is to register all of the possible typo names. So FooBar registers every single possible domain name that could possibly be considered close to FooBar. Bad for FooBar. Bad for anybody who wants a domain name (now they will ALL be taken), but good for Verisign.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
You know, this is just going to place a good bit more load on everyone's nameserver, not just the roots. Every request that used to be discarded from NS caches because it didn't exist will now be cached normally as a "good" request. 10-12% more data load might not be much for small DNS uses, but for companies like AOHell and other large ISPs, VeriSign is just screwing them over.
On another note, this would have to be some form of nameserver hack, not a root file hack(correct me if I'm wrong). But not all of the root servers are controlled by Verisign. Are those independant roots going to go along with this? Why should they?
R-r-r-r-regulation! Jesus, when are we going to wake out of the ideological stupor that holds that there's no place for government in a utopia? Despite what your Republican and Libertarian friends tell you, regulation can be a good thing.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
On one hand, Verisign wants us to believe they are sufficiently trustworthy to extort as much as USD1595.00 from us for a handful of 1's and 0's (SSL Certificates), and on the other they expect to be able to get away with the dispicable, annoying business practice of hijacking users' web requests? This is annoying enough as it is with opportunistic larrikins buying up misspelt domains, without the custodian of the database abusing its' position by returning effectively forged replies to queries for domains which do not exist. Reminds me of their recent foray into the domain 'Back-Order Domain Acquisition Service business.
I guess with competitors closing the gap by offering virtually the same thing for a fraction of the price, they must be getting desparate.
I wrote the following letter to ICANN when it first cropped up:
Hello,
We already have the example of WLS in Verisign abusing its monopoly (and ICANN not stopping this abuse -- see www.stopwls.com).
Planning to monetize all typos by rewriting DNS error codes to instead point to itself (i.e. instead of returning error codes, it will no longer return errors, but instead bring the surfer to Verisign money-making pages) is yet another example of an abusive monopolist. See here:
Given the huge technical standards that Verisign would be violating, as well as the Intellectual Property and economic issues (e.g. a typo of one letter of your domain name could send a client to a search engine listing your competitor as #1, or worse; John Zuccarini is in JAIL for his typo-squatting!), can someone in the Names Council, or the ICANN Board that has a spinal column please pre-empt this Verisign move by forbidding unilateral action of such a nature by means of a vote of some kind, through the introduction of a motion?
From the comments at ICANNWatch when this abuse last came up, perhaps the way to frame the motion is "gTLD Registry operators WILL return NXDOMAIN for ALL DNS queries for which where there is not a REGISTERED domain name." Period.
Once you start tampering with things at the DNS level, as Verisign is intending to do, you threaten the security and stability of the internet, as I think Vint Cerf properly recognizes (being right at least half of the time; bad call on WLS, but the courts and the US governmet will take care of that one eventually). For a company whose slogan is "The Value of Trust", Verisign makes a mockery of the caretaker role it has been given as guardian of the com/net registries. I trust them as much as I trust John Zuccarini.
If the US government had a problem with Microsoft embedding the Internet Explorer browser into its operating system, what will they think given Verisign has an even greater monopoly when it comes to DNS resolution? The power should belong to the users, who should have the choice (through their own software) how to resolve errors. That's why we have technical standards. Making that decision for them, by BREAKING technical standards and the applications that rely on those standards, as Verisign plans to do, and making loads of $$$$ while doing it, smacks of an abusive father-knows-best monopolist. Verisign is the father you wish you never had! Calling it a "service" adds insult to injury, as they did with WLS, especially when it's a MONOPOLY service, for which one has no choice. When you make a typo for a telephone call, does the 1-800 operator (AT&T, MCI, Neustar?) start playing paid jingles for your competitors, instead of telling you that you misdialled via a message?
Ultimately, folks know Verisign wants to milk every last penny out of its monopolies, and doesn't care who they have to step on to do so. Take a look at Games.TV which shows:
to understand what Verisign's goals are (Verisign runs .tv). Do you think you really own your .com domains? What price would Verisign like to charge you for your domains?? Once they wipe out some registrars through WLS, and other monopoly abuses, who will be left to stop them?
If Verisign is permitted to g
Except those are subdomains. Not domains
That's another misuse of standards though. The "www" prefix is just a 'common' way of setting up websites. It's not required. It's no different from any other zone, for that matter.
If Verisign is going to only do these for 'www.' prefixed records, it may be a bit less of a problem, but it's still a problem. Among the things I can think up off the top of my head (I'm sure other people have mentioned these, and there are many more)
- Proxies would be caching extra data
- Web applications (or non-web) that validate user input by checking for existance of a domain are going to break
- For sites that don't have a www prefix, it could confuse users, since they'll see a (different) browser specific error message.
- Obviously, lockin to a certain vendor - suddenly verisign decides who you use for searches, and what happens when you make a typo, instead of your browser settings.
this is just YASTAPTDE (yet another solution to a problem that doesn't exist)Speak before you think