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Verisign Breaks the Internet (in Case You Haven't Heard)

I really don't have much to offer this debate, other than that Verisign should be forced to give up the registrar business to companies that won't break the Internet. Nutshell: Verisign changed the name server response so that all mistyped URLs go to their SiteFinder service instead of returning a "domain not found" error. Seems innocuous, until you consider that some Internet services need to know when the domain does not exist. Imagine a mis-addressed email message which used to bounce back to you. Now it gets delivered, without you knowing it got delivered to Verisign. God knows what they do with misdirected email, but most people think they harvest the email addresses. The Internet community responded by supplying a BIND patch that avoids this "service" Verisign provides. Several companies filed lawsuits against Verisign. It's an ugly mess. ICANN watch has a lot of information and CircleID provides relevant information.

Posted by Mark Monday, September 22, 2003 5:35:00 PM | permalink |