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/]