Holy Cow!

[Frank]

Verisign is now using all un-registered domains for it's own purposes. If you type (for example):

http://asdftfdghjhvn.com

You will get (sometimes) a pop-up ad and (always) a search engine. There are many times more un-registered than registered domains (possibly infinitely so) and Verisign have them all. Forget about the guy who was just prosecuted for having 5,000 mis-type domains - Verisign have billions.

What an abuse of handling the domain registry!

- Frank

[Trev]

It must be on .com, .net and .org because when I type it with .co.uk I still get the standard microsoft dnserror.aspx page...

but still thats a damn good idea, imagine the traffic... and they'll only get problems if they start putting misleading content with domain names... and they aint.

[Opti]

I must be missing something here about why this is so terrible.

It looks like a good idea to me.. people typing in non-existant domains are likely to want a search engine a lot of the time.. and I'm sure they will sell you any of the domains that they are doing it with if you want them.

[Trev]

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I love it... I just wish I was verisign, all that traffic :yowsa:

[Opti]

yeah I could see that Trev :)

I just got distracted and didnt hit the post button when I first typed that.. before seeing what you said

[sarettah]

Someone has already filed a lawsuit against Verisign on this stuff....

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030918/tech_verisi..._lawsuit_1.html (http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030918/tech_verisign_domains_lawsuit_1.html)

VeriSign sued over controversial Web service
Thursday September 18, 9:07 pm ET
By Elinor Mills Abreu

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 18 (Reuters) - An Internet search company on Thursday filed a $100 million antitrust lawsuit against VeriSign Inc. (NasdaqNM:VRSN - News), accusing the Web address provider of hijacking misspelled and unassigned Web addresses with a service it launched this week.

VeriSign's new SiteFinder service takes searches for ".com" and ".net" Web addresses that are not spelled correctly or have not yet been registered and redirects them to a VeriSign Web page that includes options and pay-for-placement topic links.

Since it was launched on Monday, the SiteFinder service has drawn widespread criticism from Internet users who complain that VeriSign has overstepped its authority. However, VeriSign says it is merely offering a convenient service.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Orlando, Florida, alleges antitrust violations, unfair competition and violations of the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and asks the court to order VeriSign to put a halt to the service, said Robert Hart, a spokesman for Popular Enterprises LLC, the Orlando-based parent company of search provider Netster.com.

According to the lawsuit, Mountain View, California-based VeriSign has been using its position as the keeper of the master list of all Web addresses ending in ".com" and ".net," also called domain names, to unfair advantage.

[VooMan]

I read the other day that they are only doing this with .com and .net domains. And getting 20 million hits a day from it... :blink:

[Nickatilynx]

ahhhh.......20 million type in hits.......

(droooool)

[cj]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Sep 19 2003, 12:23 PM
ahhhh.......20 million type in hits.......

(droooool)
ditto ...

mmmmmm typeins

i would have done the same thing only with a porn category! :rokk:

http://sitefinder.verisign.com/spc?sb=sex&...pe=1&op=landing (http://sitefinder.verisign.com/spc?sb=sex&searchboxtype=1&op=landing)

now THAT is the cleanest 'sex' search i've ever seen!!!!!

[Frank]

ICANN has asked Verisign to suspend this 'service'...

http://www.computerworld.com/developmentto...1,85228,00.html (http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,85228,00.html)

- Frank

[kath]

I agree - it's not that I don't like the "idea" - I just don't like that it was Verisign's idea. Hate to see them get anything - lol

Hmmmm.... sounds like one of our guys must have come up with this. Who has gone to the "dark side" to work with Verisign from porn? Surely no mainstreamer could have dreamed up this plan!

:groucho:

[Mike AI]

The official response from DirectNIC:

Louisiana Domain Registrar Affected By VeriSign Tactics
New ‘SiteFinder’ Service Activates All Un-used Web Addresses

NEW ORLEANS, LA – Like a bad horror movie to the tune of Night of the Living Dead, global domain name giant VeriSign recently decided to bring to life every single .COM and .NET web address combination possible.

Under the project name SiteFinder, all .COM and .NET domains that are not specifically registered to an end user will now resolve to an advertising page, sponsored by VeriSign.

“We view this as an abuse of VeriSign’s authority to oversee the domain name system,” Sigmund Solares, an attorney and C.E.O. of Intercosmos Media Group, Inc. in New Orleans, said. Intercosmos operates one of the top 10 most popular domain name registration sites, directNIC.com.

“VeriSign has been entrusted to look out for the common good of all domain registrars as the global registry for .COM and .NET domain names,” Solares said. “Instead, the company has simply turned nearly all potential Internet space into one massive advertising fishing net, all to increase VeriSign’s own profits at the expense of other domain registrars and Internet advertising companies. This is not to mention the potential harm to the millions of Internet users,” he said.

Many computer network troubleshooting, spam guards and other security testing techniques have depended on being able to determine if a domain name is active or not. That is no longer possible for the most common two domain names in existence, .COM and .NET.

“The effect of these changes on Internet users and general Internet security is yet to be seen,” Solares said.

VeriSign, which both oversees the global domain name database system for all domain name registrars and also acts as a domain name registrar directly to end users, could be in violation of various obligations to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Solares said.

There also could be numerous anti-monopoly lawsuits following VeriSign’s new tactics. Intercosmos, for example, operates an Internet advertising search engine that receives more than one million page views per day to its service at http://search.directnic.com.

“By singularly using SiteFinder for its own benefit, VeriSign seems to have an unfair advantage in the paid Internet search market that was never intended or contemplated when the company was entrusted to manage the .COM and .NET domain name systems,” Solares said.

Intercosmos, as well as other companies, are waiting to see the full ramifications of VeriSign’s latest controversial actions.

“A lawsuit may be in the forecast,” Solares said.

[Hooper]

It's a good business idea but it's TERRIBLE for the internet.

Take for example... email bounces. Normally you send an email and if you make a typo in the address your smtp host will alert you pretty quickly with a mailer daemon error telling you that the host was not valid. Now the host *IS* valid no thanks to verisign... so now the email gets delivered to verisigns servers and you better hope their email servers arent swampped with typos cause otherwise you might not find out for days (if ever) that your email wasnt delivered as expected. This is just one example.

Take for example... billing processors. Many of them use bounced emails as an indicator that the recipient didnt get their e-receipt.. normally processors cancel the trial of somebody who didnt get the e-receipt.. now... that entire process is worthless... meaning that you'll likely have a higher chargeback ratio than before. thanks to versign.

Newsletters suddenly are more problematic. Many of the optin systems rely upon looking up the valid mx host for a domain name/email that you type in when subscribing.... now they all get returned as valid. Meaning that the amount of bogus email being sent is going to sky rocket.

How about tgp's? Many of them do automatic lookups on your domain to make sure it's valid. Now they cant....

those are just the examples i came up with off the top of my head. it's fucked, just another sign of verisign abusing their powers. I cant wait for them to be forced to stop this.

[Mike AI]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030922/lam075_1.html

[bluedesignstudios]

Originally posted by Hooper@Sep 22 2003, 09:56 AM
It's a good business idea but it's TERRIBLE for the internet.

Take for example... email bounces. Normally you send an email and if you make a typo in the address your smtp host will alert you pretty quickly with a mailer daemon error telling you that the host was not valid. Now the host *IS* valid no thanks to verisign... so now the email gets delivered to verisigns servers and you better hope their email servers arent swampped with typos cause otherwise you might not find out for days (if ever) that your email wasnt delivered as expected. This is just one example.

Take for example... billing processors. Many of them use bounced emails as an indicator that the recipient didnt get their e-receipt.. normally processors cancel the trial of somebody who didnt get the e-receipt.. now... that entire process is worthless... meaning that you'll likely have a higher chargeback ratio than before. thanks to versign.

Newsletters suddenly are more problematic. Many of the optin systems rely upon looking up the valid mx host for a domain name/email that you type in when subscribing.... now they all get returned as valid. Meaning that the amount of bogus email being sent is going to sky rocket.

How about tgp's? Many of them do automatic lookups on your domain to make sure it's valid. Now they cant....

those are just the examples i came up with off the top of my head. it's fucked, just another sign of verisign abusing their powers. I cant wait for them to be forced to stop this.
I agree Hooper, definitely all the points you raised are annoying for many Internet users.

I guess VeriSign just saw the traffic there & had $$$ in their eyes & couldn't say No to it.
:yowsa: