Comment like Hijacking, Computer Viruses, Identity Theft (Score 1) 507
In Internet Explorer, I don't like the "search from address bar". I don't want MSN to review every URL mistake I make. So I turn it off! I also have the option to change search engine, I think. Address bar search is on by default and it invokes MSN by default. I guess the developer of the Greatest Web Browser in the World, the People's Choice, deserves that perk. I'm not screaming murder about it because I can turn off "search from address bar" on every computer I use. (Though I feel bad about the exploitation of the simple users who trust the address-bar search to help them, even as it exploits them.)
But HOW DO I TURN OFF SITE FINDER? I can't turn it off. That is why I find SiteFinder BEYOND UNACCEPTABLE. Verisign has made itself the enemy. I will block and oppose SiteFinder every way I can, and so will everyone else. On my firewalls I will block their IP addresses. The more traffic I block from accessing this unfair fraudulent contract-breaching SiteFinder, the better. The SiteFinder Innovation is so well-loved that ISPs blocked it. They know it's wrong.
It's bad enough that Verisign always sees every errant domain name that gets passed to DNS lookup. With SiteFinder they get to see the entire URL as well. (Bad requests for
By what right does Verisign's paid advertising server get traffic from every unregistered domain? Why Verisign? Why not somewhere else? Verisign has the ability to grab that traffic. Very sad that they chose to do it. It was a power play, a money grab pure and simple. Verisign manages a database. That is their job. If there is to be some kind of helper for resolving errant domain names, it should be agreed upon IN ADVANCE. It should have fairness or equal access or nearly-equal access. (Not so clear how to do that. A browser configuration is the only precedent. (And that product placement was Grabbed as well...))
SiteFinder is really just typo-squatting in the extreme. Effectively Verisign bulk-registered 36^20= 1.3*10^31 names to themselves. At $6 a year, who gets the 8.0*10^31 DOLLARS for these registrations? I guess Verisign could just write themselves a check for $80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 every year. Then there would zero domain names available -- Verisign could then ration out domain names any way they see fit -- they can auction each name to the highest bidder. A whole new kind of scalping -- since, after all, they OWN the database.
Everyone who owns a website has an objection to SiteFinder. Verisign is squatting on EVERY un-registered variation of EVERY domain name. So the Verisign typo-squatting encourages companies to try to register all their typos to prevent Site Finder bypasses -- more direct money for Verisign.
Domain names are an addressing scheme. SiteFinder is an abuse of that scheme. Everyone who understands what Verisign has done (us vocal minority) knows that SiteFinder is a violation of a trust.
McLaughlin sidesteps all of the real issues and raises a smokescreen of non-issues. I'm not opposing innovation. I'm not opposing commercial use of the Internet. Verisign has no right to do what they did. Their Innovation inspires ISPs to innovate ways of blocking it out. Verisign's ability to impose itself does not give it the right to impose. DNS is a monopoly and also the foundation of the WWW. SiteFinder was always possible. If implemented it is a new monopoly. Don't confuse Amazon's success, due to millions of people typing in A-M-A-Z-O-N one letter at a time and clicking links that uniquely address that corner of the WWW, with the imposed monopoly of SiteFinder. No one will ever type in SiteFinder or ever link to it. People ONLY get there by being hijacked. There ARE ways out without SiteFinder - when a URL comes up DNS error, just correct the URL! SiteFinder actually takes that option away from us, because the URL changes to their own piece-of-garbage URL, just like it does with the "search from address bar".
Someone asked, what if our telephone service worked this way? And what if the Post Office worked this way?
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=81087&thr
