[Gllug] Fighting Verisign greed

[Alan Peery]

I think most of us on this list agree that what Verisign had done with 
failed DNS lookups and sitefinder.verisign.com is not a good thing.  The 
question is what to do about it.

Yesterday morning I wrote email (or feedback forms) to two broadcast 
companies, one online news forum, two different local newspapers, and 
one organisation for businesses.  In each case, I pointed out the impact 
that it would have on their consitituency--and directly on their own 
revenues.  While I haven't seen any positive result from this yet, I 
hope that at least one person in each of these organisations now 
understands that Verisign's trick is about much more than "helping lost 
Web surfers".  Hopefully there will at least be a sidebar on any 
coverage indicating the downside of  failing to return proper NXDOMAIN 
errors.

If this behavior of Verisign's is to be punished with enough intensity 
to make them give up what they expect to be hundreds of millions of 
dollars of revenue, it will require more my few letters.  Write your 
own. use analogies heavily, and refer people to their own in-house 
network experts.  If you need technical ammunition, the IETF letter 
(http://www.iab.org/Documents/icann-vgrs-response.html) may be helpful.

Odds of success?  Next to zero unless we do more.

Alan
=============================

Help is here for lost Web surfers 
By Anick Jesdanun 
Associated Press 

      NEW YORK - Mistype a Web address, and the generic error message
that appears in your browser window offers few clues about how to reach
the site you're seeking.
      VeriSign Inc., which directs traffic for much of the Internet,
launched a service Monday that will change all that. For mistyped
addresses for which no Web site exists, it will offer you a list of
likely alternatives.
      Critics complain that the new service, Site Finder, gives a
private company too much control over online commerce and lets it profit
from an essential monopoly over ".com" and ".net" names.
      "It goes against the philosophy of consumer choice," said Michael
Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor who follows domain name
matters.
      Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet's main designers and chairman of
a key oversight board for domain names, said the service could violate
long-standing Internet standards.
      Several Internet service providers, including America Online,
already offer similar services for their customers, and Microsoft
Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser sometimes directs mistyped queries to
its MSN search engine.
      But because AOL and Microsoft ultimately get information about
".com" and ".net" names from VeriSign's directory computers, VeriSign
could intercept such queries and direct them to Site Finder.
      Although VeriSign officials say Internet providers can set up
their domain name systems to bypass Site Finder, a test Monday by The
Associated Press using both AOL and Microsoft's browser showed such
bypassing did not always occur.
      And AOL complained.
      "We put so much of our research into developing this (AOL) search
result page," AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said. "We are reviewing our
potential options. We are strongly opposed to them interjecting
themselves into our members' search experience."
      The service affects only ".com" and ".net" names and won't kick in
when someone has already claimed variations that are one or two letters
off. Typing "disbey.com" - with a "b" instead of an "n" - gets you a Web
site that already registered the name.
      But as of Monday afternoon, "earthfink.net" was not registered.
Typing in that name got Site Finder's suggestions for "earthlink.net" or
"earthfind.com." Users can then type a search query just as they do at
Google or browse through preselected categories.
      VeriSign began offering Site Finder on Monday, although it may
take another day or so before the company finishes activating it
worldwide. 
      Ben Turner, VeriSign's vice president for naming services,
described the service as a way to "improve overall usability of the
Internet."
      People mistype ".com" and ".net" names some 20 million times
daily, Turner said, and internal studies show "the vast majority of
users prefer a page like this than what they are getting today."
      Danny Sullivan, editor of the Search Engine Watch online
newsletter, agreed that such a service could be helpful, though he said
it could also be abused - for instance, by directing users only to sites
that pay to be included.
      Currently, Site Finder sends lost Web surfers to both regular
search results and pay-for-placement listings, which are marked as such.
Turner said VeriSign was partnering with two search companies he would
not name.
      He would not disclose how much VeriSign would earn from those
companies, with which it has revenue-sharing arrangements.
      "Right now, VeriSign's business is not a growing business, and
anything that they do to add the slightest amount of growth is going to
be positive," said Gene Munster, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper
Jaffray Inc.





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