Thoughts on VeriSign's Implementation of the so-called SiteFinder "service"

[Doug Mehus <dmehus@xxxxxxx>]

I wanted to take this opportunity to share my thoughts and opinion of 
VeriSign's recent decision to "wildcard" the COM and NET zones by redirecting 
misspelled or non-existent domain names to its so-called SiteFinder "service." 
While to the lay person this "service" might seem like a good opportunity to 
search for information when they misspell a domain name in their web browser, 
in reality, it is not.

In my view, it is not the job of a generic Top-Level Domain ("gTLD") registry 
operator to act as a web search engine. The registry operator, in this case 
VeriSign which manages the COM and NET gTLDs, should act as an open, neutral, 
and responsive third party. Whether or not someone types in a non-existent 
domain name or misspells an existing one is irrelevant. If VeriSign's "service" 
is allowed to continue to operate, it would be a devastating blow to the entire 
search engine industry by giving preferential treatment to one search 
provider's paid listings and algorithmic results over another at the very heart 
of the Internet -- the gTLD root. In the age of competition, this would be an 
enormous setback, by setting us back to the Network Solutions 
registrar/registry monopoly while raising serious antitrust concerns. Not only 
that, it is a valid point to argue that VeriSign's SiteFinder typosquats on 
existing trademarks or other intellectual property.

In addition, VeriSign's SiteFinder (http://sitefinder.verisign.com/) has 
already caused tremendous grief to Internet spam filters that check to see if a 
domain name is valid before passing it on to the intended recipient, since it 
is a common practice among spammers to use invalid or unregistered domain names 
in an e-mail message's "From" field. This is further evidenced through the 
discussion at community-based weblogging sites such as Slashdot 
(http://slashdot.org/) and ICANNWatch (http://www.icannwatch.org/).

So, not only does this move cause problems for spam filters and programs that 
check the validity of e-mail messages, it also causes problems in other ways. 
SiteFinder hinders or, possibly even prevents, a network administrator from 
performing his or her job to fix network problems in a corporate, educational, 
or governmental setting.

Further illustrating that Site Finder is a bad idea and that ICANN should issue 
an ultimatum for VeriSign to stop the practice of "wildcarding" the COM and NET 
zones is the point that search engine traffic will become heavily polluted. 
Under the previous DNS system set up, in which there was no wildcard, if a 
domain name expired for site that happened to be in the Google web search 
index, the next time Google crawled the web, it would remove that site from its 
index. With the wildcard in place, Googlebot, the automated "spider" Google 
uses when building its index, thinks there is a site there and does not remove 
it. Therefore, with all of these extra pages, which in reality are just 
SiteFinder search result pages, artificially inflate VeriSign's ranking in the 
major search engines -- not just Google. I believe this practice to be 
anti-competitive.

Lastly, VeriSign's SiteFinder decision threatens the security and stability of 
the Internet by going against proven Internet best practices that have been in 
place since its birth. It also violates VeriSign's Registry Agreement with 
ICANN to manage the COM and NET zones 
(http://www.icann.org/nsi/nsi-registry-agreement-04nov99.htm) because VeriSign 
is earning revenue in the process, which ICANN Chief gTLD Registry Liaison Tina 
Dam said was a "no-no" when I asked about a similar test that NeuLevel 
performed for the BIZ zone several months ago. Here was her response.

"Dear Doug,

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

However, the wildcard redirection of BIZ names is a short-term test of the
BIZ directory performed by NeuLevel, with no revenue involved. Hence there
is no breach of the NeuLevel Agreement with ICANN.

Kind regards,

Tina Dam

ICANN
Chief gTLD Registry Liaison
Phone: +1-310-301-5838"

As an informed constituent of ICANN's At-Large Advisory Committee 
(http://alac.icann.org/), I join other constituents and Internet stakeholders 
in joining together to call on ICANN to demand VeriSign cease the wildcard 
redirection of COM and NET domain names promptly. If VeriSign should choose not 
to comply, then I again join with other ALAC constituents and Internet 
stakeholders to demand that ICANN take steps to revoke VeriSign's Registry 
Agreements for COM and NET, and redelegate those respective gTLDs to 
organizations that will manage them properly, responsibly, and in accordance 
with the aforementioned agreement.

Cheers,
Doug Mehus
Individual Internet User, and
Global Member, Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org/)