Verisign Plans to Revive SiteFinder Advertising 'Service'

kiddailey writes "Claiming that their own independent examination of their controversial redirection service has found 'no security or stability problems', and that 'Internet users consider the service a helpful tool to navigate the web', Verisign has announced that it will give a 30- to 60-day notice before resuming the SiteFinder 'feature' that it voluntarily shut-down a couple of weeks ago."

Comments

Typos != intentional usage

[tcopeland]

From the Verizon site article:

"Prior to ICANN's October 3 directive to shut down the service, Site Finder had
been used more than 48 million times by Internet users to get where they want to go online."

"...has been used more than 48 million times...". Makes it sound like folks are eagerly flocking to the Verizon web site to 'use' this service. It's as if the highway administration shut down all lanes of I-95 and then celebrated the increased HOV usage.

Let your voice be heard, more on the poll...

[wherley]

The ICANN Information page on Verisign's Wildcard Service" elicits comments from Members of the Internet community. Emails are to be copied to wildcard-comments@icann.org A selection of comments is viewable here.
I'd suggest making your comments now.
Regarding the Verisign survey...more information about it is in this article. Excerpts:
The survey, a telephone poll of 1,000 internet users who could recall seeing Site Finder, was conducted by Markitecture and Harris Interactive and commissioned by VeriSign. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5%

On the opposing side, Tucows Inc, a domain name registrar that competes with VeriSign, said a poll of its resellers (generally ISPs and web hosting companies) indicated that 90% of respondents wanted Site Finder turned off.

Analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

So, let's say the phone systems worked in just this way. If you dailed a wrong number, you wouldn't be told you had a wrong number, you'd get to listen to an advertisement.

Quick, someone get the number of a patent lawyer

Didn't ICANN already rule this unacceptable?

[Fnkmaster]

I was under the impression ICANN essentially told Verisign this was not in compliance with their contract, and that it was unacceptable. When do we hear what the consequences are of continued, flagrant, and intentional violation of the public trust of .com and .net?

Please, ICANN, you've always sucked before, but maybe there's hope for you yet. Enforce the terms of the contract with Verisign with extreme prejudice and terminate these scumballs.

Legalities

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Under 15 U.S.C. 1125d, cybersquatting is the illegal act of registering a domain intentionally to be confused with another. Thus, Ford could not register Chevrelet.com to themselves and hope people looking for Chevy's mistype and go to the Ford site.

From what I understand, sitefinder is being used in almost the exact same way as the scenario I just mentioned. Verisign's activity is prohibited at least by the spirit, if not by the letter of the law.

This belongs at the application level

[Saint Stephen]

Verisign's statement is probably true: Many users (excepting myself) would probably prefer being offered alternative instead of an error message.

However, the proper place to implement this is at the browser level, not at the network level. So, you can grant their statement is true but it doesn't justify their case.

Re:Standards are Standards

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Standards are standards, yes, but what about the right to innovate and to make it pay?

Of course there is a right to innovate and make it pay, but Verisign has a prior obligation to uphold role they took on. Police don't innovate after they get the job. Neither do surgeons or firefighters. There are specific people who's role is to innovate, such as lawmakers, medical researchers, and scientists. And those innovations, after shown to be safe and advantageous, are carrie over to the first set of people. Police implement what the lawmakers say... etc.

There are consequences when someone with a well defined duty strays from it. In this case Verisign agreed to resolve names as the current standards dictate, not to say, "I feel like doing it differently today."