[alac] Redirection of non-existing domain names

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/19/1253205&mode=nested

IcannWatch has a story about the .biz registry automatically
redirecting requests for non-existing domain names to an arbitrary
host chosen by itself (in this case, a pay-per-click search engine).
This is not the first case (something similar happened with .com a few
months ago).

Of course, answering "yes, it exists and it is this one" (+ pointer to
registry-chosen website) rather than "no, it does not exist" when I
ask the registry for a non-existing domain name is, in my opinion,
highly deceiving for final users and opens all kinds of potential
problems (from consumer frauds to trademark violation) - apart from
violating technical standards. As someone points out, if you by
mistake type www.googgle.biz you get a search engine as you would
expect - but it is not Google.

If you share my views, we might emit a simple statement that asks
ICANN to ensure that such episodes do not happen again unless specific
policy is made on the matter (policy which, in my opinion, should
absolutely and explicitly forbid this kind of behaviour).

Opinions?
-- 
vb.                  [Vittorio Bertola - vb [at] bertola.eu.org]<---
-------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <-----------------------