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Reports of IE Hijacking NXDOMAINs, Routing To Bing
Jaeden Stormes writes "We just started getting word of a new browser hijack from our sales force. 'Some site called Bing?' they said. Sure enough, since the patches last night, their IE6 and IE7 installations are now routing all NXDOMAINs to Bing. Try it out — put in something like www.DoNotHijackMe.com." We've had mixed results here confirming this: one report that up-to-date IE8 behaves as described. Others tried installing all offered updates to systems running IE6 and IE7 and got no hijacking.
Update: 08/11 23:24 GMT by KD : Readers are reporting that it's not Bing that comes up for a nonexistent domain, it's the user's default search engine (noting that at least one Microsoft update in the past changed the default to Bing). There may be nothing new here.
Update: 08/11 23:24 GMT by KD : Readers are reporting that it's not Bing that comes up for a nonexistent domain, it's the user's default search engine (noting that at least one Microsoft update in the past changed the default to Bing). There may be nothing new here.
I don't know if it is just my perception, but it feels like MS is back to their old ways with a lot of their activities these days - particularly with regard to anything web facing.
After what felt like a few years of roughly being fair with things, we seem to have had a spate of underhand moves recently. Off the top of my head I can list installing firefox extensions through windows updates without asking (spooking a lot of people including myself - "1 new extension installed what? I didn't install anything"), upgrades to IE8 presenting the user with a complex series of choices - one that implies you should opt in to their accelerator program or IE8 won't install, and the other offering you an express set of installation options or else click through a large number of preference screens - while failing to mention that express settings set IE8 as the default browser.
And now (if true), engaging in DNS hijacking to drive visitors to their search site. Can they just not accept user preference at all?
IE cannot "hijack" NXDOMAIN, because it's not an ISP.
Perhaps, but Microsoft can use its control of IE to artificially pad the number of hits to bing.com. That way users who had no intention of visiting the site will be taken there anyway. It's not so unreasonable to describe this as "hijacking" of traffic. Your computer is yours, is it not? Shouldn't it only go to a Web site when you decide that you want it to, and not when someone in marketing decides it'll drive traffic to a site? Sorry but you really seem to be quibbling about semantics, as though semantics had any power to make this an ethical or desirable feature.
It seems that the reports of this behavior are not terribly consistent. So as to whether or not I know for sure that this is going on, I have to say "I don't know." What I will say is that this kind of disrespectful treatment of users, the blatant disregard of their free choices, is par for the course for Microsoft and is a major reason why I refuse to use their software. It's certainly believable that they would do this. It means they view users as objects, as means to an end, and feel free to direct users' equipment and 'Net connections in any way that suits their marketing purposes. That is how you treat furniture, not human beings. In the face of that, I consider IE's "non-ISP" status to be not just a moot point, but a distraction.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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