[IP] VeriSign responds with arrogance to Site Finder critics -- Dan Gillmor
VeriSign responds with arrogance to Site Finder critics
By Dan Gillmor
Mercury News Technology Columnist
News and views, culled and edited from my online eJournal
(www.dangillmor.com/blog):
VeriSign's bad attitude: Domain-name giant VeriSign, which controls the
``.com'' and ``.net'' databases, has infuriated some of the Internet's most
savvy technologists for a unilateral change to a key part of the Net. The
Mountain View company's response, with one exception, has been as arrogant
as its initial action.
Several weeks ago, VeriSign launched Site Finder, a system that took users
who typed non-existent ``.com'' or ``.net'' Web address into their browsers
to a VeriSign-owned site. Previously, such mistypings had resulted either
in error messages or, if users were using America Online or Microsoft
browsers, to those companies' search pages.
Site Finder's one potentially useful feature was to suggest pages the users
might actually want. But if they weren't what people were looking for,
VeriSign offered a listing of advertiser-sponsored sites.
This was a potential gold mine for VeriSign -- and an abuse of a monopoly.
Key people in the technical Net community were outraged. They said
VeriSign's move interfered with some vital functions of the Net and reduced
its stability.
After first blowing off a call by the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) to pull Site Finder down, VeriSign did just that.
ICANN is the organization responsible for seeing that the domain-name
system, and its unhappiness with the way VeriSign was misusing its
ownership of the databases was a rare display of independence from what had
been a mostly toothless body.
But Monday, in a news conference, VeriSign basically denied having done
anything untoward. The company insisted it was doing us all a favor and
that ICANN really had no power to intervene. VeriSign also all but vowed to
put the system back online as soon as it felt like it. Now there's contrition.
VeriSign officials insisted there had been no impact on stability. (That's
not what a panel of experts reporting to ICANN found.)
VeriSign also downplayed the anti-spam problems it caused. Some anti-spam
solutions refuse to send mail when the sender's address is fake; Site
Finder essentially turned all phony ``.com'' and ``.net'' domains into real
ones. This was real harm. (Microsoft's and AOL's re-direction of users,
while equally greedy, didn't affect the core infrastructure the way Site
Finder did.)
VeriSign also noted, correctly, that other holders of domain databases can
and have done roughly the same thing. But ``.com'' is the mother lode of
the addressing system. VeriSign was plainly misusing its monopoly.
In Monday's news conference, VeriSign executive Rusty Lewis called the
situation a test for the Net -- and said the infrastructure itself was at
risk if his company couldn't ``innovate'' this way. The implicit threat:
Let us do what we want with our monopoly power or we won't invest in
upgrading the infrastructure.
VeriSign has already won the key part of this war. It has persuaded
credulous journalists to call Site Finder a ``service'' instead of what it
truly is, a misuse of monopoly power.
But if ICANN truly doesn't have any authority here, the future is fairly
grim. Companies like VeriSign are misusing their choke points, because
there's big money to be made in doing so. They shouldn't be permitted to do
this.
Do-not-call, maybe: It's worth cheering a federal appeals court's ruling
Tuesday to revive the telemarketing do-not-call registry. But even if this
decision holds up on further appeal, it won't be the end of the discussion.
First of all, as annoying as the telemarketers may be, they have at least
an arguable First Amendment beef with the current law. It's full of
loopholes and completely exempts calls from charities, survey researchers,
insurance companies and political campaigns, among others.
A do-not-call list should start with no exceptions. People should then be
free to add ``it's-OK-to-call'' categories for themselves.
Still, the telemarketers who are fighting the list are, as usual, missing
the point. We want them to leave us alone. Why won't they take ``No!'' for
an answer?
Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday and Wednesday. Visit Dan's online
column, eJournal (<http://www.dangillmor.com/blog>www.dangillmor.com/blog).
E-mail <mailto:dgillmor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>dgillmor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; phone
(408) 920-5016; fax (408) 920-5917.
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/