Re: [alac] Redirection of non-existing domain names, again

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My personal take of this is at
<http://log.does-not-exist.org/archives/000610.html>.

In a nutshell, what's being proposed here is contrary to fundamental
design principles, it's moving error handling from the end point
(where it belongs) to the center of the network -- and that in an
extremely bad way, by handling DNS errors in a way that only works
when DNS queries are used in connection with HTTP requests.

It's really bad engineering.  It's breaking part of the
infrastructure in favor off short-term commercial gain.  

It's crap, and it's a proposed practice that ICANN should kill as
early as possible.

The proper solution for permitting browsers to suggest fixes for
user's' typos would be to introduce a new query type that permits to
ask the registry for domain names that are close to what the user
entered.  But that, of course, isn't a good source of advertising
revenue.  (Ironically, something similar was specified in RFCs 882
and 883 [1983], but removed in 1035 [1987].)

The question is whether ALAC advice to the board is the right way to
handle this.  We might wish to consult on this with other groups
(technical liaison group, or however it's called, and SAC) first, in
order to end up with a stronger joint statement that has some
recognized technical expertise on its side.

-- 
Thomas Roessler                 <roessler (at) does-not-exist.org>






On 2003-09-13 11:38:47 +0200, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> From: Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: alac@xxxxxxxxx
> Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 11:38:47 +0200
> Subject: [alac] Redirection of non-existing domain names, again
> X-Spam-Level: 
> 
> We had a thread on this in June, when .biz tested it.
> 
> Now it seems it could happen soon in .com and .net.
> 
> I think we should release a statement immediately (we already had a
> draft, with good consensus on it) and bring the matter to the
> attention of the Board so to ensure that it never happens.
> 
> Opinions?
> -- 
> vb.                  [Vittorio Bertola - vb [at] bertola.eu.org]<---
> -------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <-----------------------
>