Sitefinder

[Milton L Mueller]

I changed the heading here, partly because I was tired of seeing Steve DelBianco's arguments being taken seriously (he is paid by VeriSign to take their position) and partly because the discussion has veered off in several directions. 

Regarding Sitefinder, one of the ironies surrounding that issue was that what VeriSign was prohibited from doing, is now rather routine for ISPs and even browser manufacturers. 

Two examples, just tested on my own computer-internet link: 

I type "blog" into my browser URL window. Do I get a DNS error or a 404 error message? No, I go to Google's blogger.com. I was using Firefox and Google and Firefox have a deal. 

OK, so I type blog.vrx into my window, knowing full well that there is no .vrx top level domain. Do I get a dns error message? No, I get a message from my ISP (Time-Warner's Roadrunner) - a page of links called "Website suggestions." It says "Sorry, we couldn't find blog.vrx," and then contains a page of links, including: 

Blogging Guidelines
Should Bloggers Be Mandated To Follow A Code Of Ethics?
www.ResponsibilityProject.com

Get a Personal Blog at - Web Hosts
Want to start a Blog? These Web Hosts Will let you Start One.
PrudentBusiness.org

Make Money Blogging?
Learn the fastest way to a money making blog
BlogMastermind.com

I am not too outraged by this. The difference here is that I have a choice of web browsers and (somewhat more constrained) ISPs. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Non-Commercial User Constituency [mailto:NCUC-
> DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Jorge Amodio
> Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 9:56 AM
> To: NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Contrast Beckstrom's interview with
> DelBianco's Argument Against New TLDs
> 
> >> Are you talking about a SiteFinder like system?
> >
> > Conceptually, SiteFinder is a great initiative. One that open up
> > increased mobile innovation and considering also that it is founded on
> > Freedom of Information legislation. Unfortunately, many countries e.g.
> > Kenya do not have FOI legislations therefore governments and
> > institutions with the colour of the law and corporate entities of
> > great public interest never disclose important information to the
> > public.(We have been lobbying for FOI since 2000 and has been the
> > global Freedom of Information week)
> 
> I believe you are getting confused with something else here.
> 
> SiteFinder was a wrong thing to do and it ended in a big lawsuit
> between ICANN, DoC, Verisgn, etc.
> 
> Now is one of the reasons why on the DAG there is explicit mention
> to restrict the use of wildcards on resource records at the apex of
> a TLD.
> 
> The scheme use to work adding an entry on the zone for a given
> domain name that had a wildcard (*) pointing to the IP address of
> a website of this company, then when your browser asked the DNS
> to resolve a name, if the name didn't exist instead of getting back
> the notification that the name does not exist you will be directed
> to this site (which was SiteFinder) and then there you have a
> bunch of stuff to choose from, 99% for which the company
> operating that TLD and that website was also making money.
> 
> My mention of ISPs tampering with the DNS is similar to what
> SiteFinder did. For example if from here I try to get to the URL
> "http://icann.noexiste" my ISP (Time Warner/RoadRunner)
> intercepts the DNS response are redirects me to:
> http://ww23.rr.com/index.php?origURL=http://icann.noexiste/
> and as you will see, the links on the top are "sponsored", which
> means people pay to be there and the ISP now has another
> source of revenue.
> 
> Since this is being done tampering the DNS traffic but not using
> a particular zone of the DNS and the ISPs have no contractual
> obligations with ICANN there is nothing that can be done.
> 
> Cheers
> Jorge