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VeriSign Sued Over SiteFinder Service
dmehus writes "It was only a matter of time, the pundits said, and they were right. Popular Enterprises, LLC., an Orlando, Florida based cybersquatting so-called 'search services' company, has filed a lawsuit in Orlando federal court against VeriSign, Inc. over VeriSign's controversial SiteFinder 'service.' While PopularEnterprises has had a dodgy history of buying up thousands of expired domain names and redirecting them to its Netster.com commercial "search services" site, the lawsuit is most likely a good thing, as it provides one more avenue to pursue in getting VeriSign to terminate SiteFinder. According to the lawsuit, the company contends alleges antitrust violations, unfair competition and violations of the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. It asks the court to order VeriSign to put a halt to the service. VeriSign spokesperson Brian O'Shaughnessy said the company has not yet seen the lawsuit and that it doesn't comment on pending litigation."
Cybersquatting, though one of the great minor evils of the web, is damned hard to stop. I can't think of any way to regulate/legislate it without messing up the domain registration and transfer process for everyone else - though it would be nice to be able to buy domains BACK from these companies - I would imagine quie a few choice domains are in their hands. Nice to see a lawsuit taking on Verisign over this - even if it is a cybersquatter. I wonder if there's an intelligent way to reserve domain names for individuals and organizations which already have use for the name - maybe a form of 'prior branding' only better implemented...
I guess people will figure that the end justifies the means, but the argument still seems a little distasteful.
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
At the rate things are going, in a couple weeks, no one will be able to get to their search engine site at all, whether they want to or not.
Someone probably deserves recompensation for the hassle, but it's looking like the Internet has proven resilient to even this "high level" attack.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
My browsers - Firebird and IE both keep history for a few days. It used to be that when i accidentally typed something in and the domain could not be found that it wouldn't be in my history since it wouldn't resolve. Now - thanks to URL resolving my history is gradually starting to fill full of crap. So when im in a hurry and select something out of my history i sometimes end up getting a sitefinder page instead of what I was looking for. ARRRGH.
Verisign Sucks. They always have and always will.
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aphex
I Steal Music!
I sent an email to various VeriSign addresses about their abuse. Somehow one of them got routed to a Network Solutions drone.
The drone informed me in a form letter that VeriSign's practices were "well within the guidelines" established by the document Domain Name System Wildcards in Top-Level Domain Zones.
After deconstructing this, we are left with: VeriSign is within the guidelines of the document VeriSign wrote on the matter.
Uhm...
wherein, "intercept" means the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device;
The ECPA also provides that "In a civil action under this section, appropriate relief includes--(1) such preliminary and other equitable or declaratory relief as may be appropriate;(2) damages under subsection (c); and (3) a reasonable attorney's fee and other litigation costs reasonably incurred.
Damages.--The court may assess as damages in a civil action under this section the sum of the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff and any profits made by the violator as a result of the violation, but in no case shall a person entitled to recover receive less than the sum of $1,000.
Seems like a good case can be that emails to mistyped addresses are being intercepted by Verisign. Certainly, the emails where not intended to be sent to Verisign, and they appear to be collecting some information from the email (the from address).
In this article on on CNET O'Shaughnessy said "the service has been embraced by end users. "We've seen nothing but very positive results from the Internet community," he said. "Usage is extraordinary. Both individual users and enterprises are giving very positive feedback."
So they are attributing a slashdotting, and a lot of media interest to people being positive about the service. I haven't seen one article, comment or anything that was even remotely positive. What are these guys on?
He also claims they are fully compliant with every RFC. I don't see how this is possible, unless they have found some loophole.
Has anyone else noticed this? It returns a sitefinder page immediately for blahblahsucks.com, but nada for verisignsucks.com.
I truly thank VeriSign's lovely spam service.
.com domain or .net domain is returning an SOA record and none of these messages are being blocked.
Someone a few months ago mentioned to me that Sendmail has a feature where, upon receiving mail, it will check the domain of the sender. If the domain does not exist, it has a forged From: header and is obviously spam.
Thanks to Verisign's efforts to piss me off, every DNS query on a nonexistant
Since this "service" has been implemented, I've gone from 7-8 spams a day to 30-35.
Thanks a lot, assholes.
Never thought it'd happen, but I'm rooting for the squatter... if there's a group worse than spammers and domain squatters, it's Verisign. Just on a whim, I typed in a non-existent domain name, and sure enough, found myself on their page. Take a look at the "Terms of Use". Sections 2 and 14 are really telling:
2. You may have accessed the VeriSign Service(s) by initiating a query to our DNS resolution service for a nonexistent domain name.
14. By using the service(s) provided by VeriSign under these Terms of Use, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to be bound by all terms and conditions here in and documents incorporated by reference.
I'm not sure how the came up with the fact that I, the end user, made a query to their DNS server. In fact, I did not. My ISP may be using their services, but I personally have no legal relationship with Verisign whatsoever. My ISP may be using their services, but that in no way establishes a relationship between myself and Verisign. IMO, unless you're querying Verisign directly, their terms of use cannot possibly apply -- which means that they apply to almost noone. I would challenge them to show any log that shows my IP address accessing their service. If they can't, then I did not in fact access their service.
And what's worse is the implication that I can bound by "Terms of Use" that I have never seen, based on the assumption that I made the query, when in fact the query mas made to a DNS server at my ISP (and again, I don't really care how my ISP handles that request as long as it sends me the requested info.
One comment I've seen noted about the whole SiteFinder thing is that Verisign now resolves domains which are not available for registration, so it's possible they're profiting from something that they're not allowing others to purchase.
... you can't buy single character gTLDs)
(Try www.a.com, www.b.com, etc
2. NATURE OF THE VERISIGN SERVICES.
You may have accessed the VeriSign Service(s) by initiating a query to our DNS resolution service for a nonexistent domain name. We are unable to resolve such queries through the DNS resolution service.
They are, and they do. They resolve such queries to 64.94.110.11.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I have simply sent them an email and more importantly a 'letter' that informs Verisign that I do not accept their terms of service and that I am seeking their advice on how to stop making use of their software, considering I do not meet their terms of service.
I have informed them that if they cannot stop providing me with this service, (for which I do not accept their terms, and by which I cannot be bound) then they will have to contact me to negotiate a new set of terms to which I do agree.
I would imagine that if every user that is upset by this new 'service' was to do the same then Verisign would have to do 'something' about it.